


between heaven and disaster

by generalfrings, youmeandem



Category: Fifth Harmony (Band)
Genre: F/F, childhood AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-06 06:18:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 50,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5406176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/generalfrings/pseuds/generalfrings, https://archiveofourown.org/users/youmeandem/pseuds/youmeandem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sometimes girls kiss other girls and sometimes boys kiss other boys. There may be laws against love, but there aren’t any rules. People can’t help who they fall in love with, and one day everyone will know that.”</p><p> “I don’t think Camila knows.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dinah

**Author's Note:**

> _emilia_  
> [tumblr](http://theperfectsin.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/mindoflauren) | [wattpad](https://www.wattpad.com/user/youmeandem)
> 
>  _frings_  
> [tumblr](http://generalfrings.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/GenFrings) | [wattpad](https://www.wattpad.com/user/generalfrings)

They're both six years old when they promise to love each other forever. It happens on the trampoline in Lauren's backyard, while Dinah and Normani are inside to beg Lauren's mom for more cookies.

Camila and Lauren settle down, laying on their backs to look at the clouds in the sky. Well, Camila is. Lauren is looking at Camila. It’s not a conscious decision—Camila is just really pretty. Prettier than the sky. Definitely prettier than the clouds.

It’s quiet for a few moments, but Lauren doesn’t mind. Silences with Camila are never uncomfortable. But talking to Camila is even better, so Lauren’s heart kind of jumps when Camila gasps and grabs her hand, points at the sky, and says, “That one looks like a banana.”

Lauren tears her gaze away from Camila to look at the banana cloud, and she has to admit Camila’s right. Her smile reflects Camila’s. “It does.”

Camila’s face is really close, and the twinkle in her eyes is so happy Lauren can’t really help but lean in. She doesn’t know why she’s so compelled to press her lips against Camila’s, but it’s sort of nice. It’s also sort of gross, but the niceness definitely outweighs the grossness.

For two heartbeats nothing happens. Neither of them moves. Lauren’s eyes flutter closed. She wonders if this is what her parents feel like sometimes when their faces are really close to each other when they’re talking.

Then Camila pulls back, frowning a little. “What was that?”

Lauren needs a moment to get herself together, and her eyes are still closed, but Camila’s voice grounds her a little. She looks into Camila’s eyes—there's a slightly confused expression in them, but also something else that looks a little like the way Lauren's heart is beating against her chest. And Lauren doesn’t know why, but she’s relieved. “I’m not sure.”

Camila doesn't move. “You kissed me.”

“I guess,” Lauren says in a soft voice. “Was that okay?”

Camila’s frown deepens, like she’s deep in thought. Then she shrugs, her lips curling up into a shy smile. “I guess. But why?” 

Lauren blinks. She didn’t think that far ahead yet. “I don’t know. My mom and dad kiss all the time, and then they say they love each other.” 

“Oh.” Camila pauses for a moment, her frown disappearing. Her eyes flicker down to Lauren’s mouth, and before Lauren realizes what’s happening, Camila pecks her lips and says, “I love you.”

Lauren tries to ignore the butterflies in her stomach, but she smiles and rolls back on her back. Her hand finds Camila’s, and she gives it a soft squeeze. “I love you, too.”

“Forever?” Camila asks, her voice timid and shy in comparison to before.

“Forever.” 

And then Dinah and Normani come running outside with an entire pack of cookies between them and half-eaten ones in their hand, and Camila jumps up to grab the cookies before Dinah eats them all.

 

 

Things don’t change in the years after that. They still hang out every day after school, usually at Lauren or Camila’s house, because they’re neighbors and they live closest to school.

But then things do start to change. It happens on Lauren’s eleventh birthday, when they’re in the backyard, playing by the trampoline. Their parents are all inside, eating cake and talking about boring adult stuff, and Lauren’s next to Normani, leaning her arms on the trampoline while Camila and Dinah are jumping up and down.

It’s not the most comfortable position, but Lauren doesn’t mind because she likes it when Camila’s happy and Camila looks  _really_  happy right now. Lauren could probably watch her for hours.

“I gotta pee,” Normani says, slipping her arms off the trampoline. As if it’s a given, Dinah stops jumping and climbs off the trampoline. They don’t say anything—they just disappear inside. 

Lauren watches them leave, and it’s not until she turns back around that she realizes Camila's stopped jumping too. 

“Play with me,” she says, holding out her hand. Lauren doesn’t hesitate to grab it, letting Camila help her climb on the trampoline even though she could’ve done it herself just as easily. Camila sits down with her legs crossed, but when Lauren wants to sit down, too, she shakes her head. “You jump. It’s a funny feeling.”

Lauren isn’t sure what’s so funny about being bounced around, but she does what Camila asks anyway. At first she's worried she's going to hit Camila in the face or knock her over somehow, but her worry disappears the second Camila starts laughing almost uncontrollably.

It doesn’t last very long. Jumping is exhausting, especially when your heart was already beating out of your chest before you even started. Lauren lets herself sink down next to Camila, and she smiles.

Camila smiles back. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Lauren says. “Anything to see you smile.”

It happens right then. One moment they’re just smiling at each other, the next Camila leans in and kisses her. A little longer than last time, and with a little less nonchalance. When she pulls back, she’s smiling again. “Happy birthday, Lo. I love you.” 

“I love you, too,” Lauren breathes, her forehead still pressed against Camila’s. She’s eleven years old, and she has no idea what she’s doing. 

But some part of her knows she’s in love with Camila. There’s no fireworks when the words cross her mind—just something that feels a lot like  _oh_ , and that’s that.

“Forever?” Camila asks, and their noses brush.

Lauren closes her eyes. She takes everything in, from the way Camila’s face feels against her own to the thousands of butterflies in her stomach. She doesn’t know how she’ll ever not love Camila. “Fore—”

“We’re back,” Dinah announces, very loudly, and they jump apart. And then, “Were you kissing?”

“Uh—” Lauren says at the same time Camila says, “No.” 

Dinah looks back and forth between them with a look of disbelief and judgment, and Lauren feels Camila inching away from her. She wants to grab her hand and keep her close, but she can’t make herself move under the weight of Dinah’s stare.

“Good,” Dinah says. “Girls are not supposed to kiss other girls. We're supposed to kiss boys.”

Her words feel like a punch to the stomach. Lauren’s mouth goes dry and it feels like someone's shoved a glowing hot iron stick down her throat. She looks at her hands and wonders if her heart chose wrong somehow.

When she looks up, Camila is on the other side of the trampoline, as pale as a ghost. She doesn’t meet Lauren’s eyes—she barely even acknowledges Lauren’s there.

Something has changed. Lauren can feel it in the air, in the way Camila’s body language went from happy and honest to closed and distant.

Something has changed, because girls are not supposed to kiss other girls.

 

 

Being friends with Camila is different from being friends with Dinah or Normani. When Lauren is with Dinah and Normani, there is no tension when their hands brush accidentally, and her heart doesn’t flutter every time they smile at her.

Being friends with Camila is different, because Lauren doesn’t want to just be friends. She’s thirteen, and her body is starting to change, and she can’t stop thinking about Camila’s smile and her eyes and her hair and her hands. Mostly she thinks about what it means that somewhere in the back of her mind she’s always thinking about kissing her. 

By now she knows what Dinah meant when she said that girls are not supposed to kiss other girls, but that doesn’t mean Lauren doesn’t  _want_  to kiss other girls. Well, one girl in particular.

It’s Camila. It's always Camila. She’d choose her over anything, or anyone. She doesn’t remember a time where she wouldn’t choose Camila over anything. Maybe there was just never such a time—they grew up together, after all.

The more time they spend together, the stronger Lauren’s feelings become, until she can’t breathe without wanting to hold Camila’s hand, until her heart beats against the walls of her ribcage, until it doesn’t feel right to say anything but Camila’s name.

She’s pretty sure she’ll burst if she doesn’t tell someone.

So she does, one night when everyone is out and it’s just her and her mom. They’re in the kitchen, and they just finished eating dinner. Lauren’s so nervous she’s chews the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood.

“Mom?”

Her mom looks up from loading the dishwasher. “Yes?”

Lauren doesn’t meet her mother’s eyes, casting her gaze downwards instead. Her hands are trembling. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” Her mom presses a few buttons and closes the dishwasher, sitting back down at the dinner table. “Is something wrong?”

Lauren shakes her head. “Not really. I just—I don’t know.”

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” her mom says, a hint of worry in her voice. “Literally anything.”

And Lauren knows, but it still doesn’t keep her stomach from turning every time she thinks about all the potential reactions that she imagined over and over again at nights she couldn’t sleep. Her tongue feels heavy. “What’s it like to be in love?” 

Her mom smiles. “It’s different for everyone, but usually you can’t stop thinking about them and you want to be with them all the time. Sometimes you really want to touch them, even if it’s just your hands brushing, and you think they’re the most beautiful person in the world.” Her eyes turn dreamy like when she looks at Lauren’s father. “But why are you asking? Are you in love with someone?”

“No,” Lauren says, although it’s mostly a reflex. She shrugs, still avoiding eye contact. “Maybe.”  

“I’ve learned that usually when it crosses your mind that you might be in love with someone, you usually are,” her mom says in a soft voice. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Lauren thinks about Camila. She's always thinking about Camila, clinging to the memory of their eleven year old selves sharing a kiss that was both meaningless and meaningful at the same time. She thinks about the way Camila used to look at her, before Dinah told them girls are not supposed to kiss each other.

“Promise you won’t be mad,” she almost whispers.

“I promise I won’t be mad.” 

She swallows, finally looking up. “I think I’m in love with Camila.”

The silence that follows feels endless, even though it’s probably just a few seconds. She watches the emotions flash over her mother’s face—surprise, confusion, and something she can’t identify.

Somewhere between the first time she ever says those words out loud and the moment her mom pulls her into a hug, Lauren starts crying. Quiet sobs with even quieter tears that melt together with her mother’s blouse.

“Of course I’m not mad,” her mom says. “My love for you is regardless of who you love. I want you to know that. You know that, right?”

Lauren nods, because she’s still crying and her voice sort of stopped working. She clings to her mother like her life depends on it, lets herself be held until her tears stop falling and she finds her tongue.

“I never said that out loud,” she says. “I was scared it would make things more real, but—they already are.”

Her mom cracks a tender smile, still rubbing her back. “If only things worked like that.”

“Dinah said girls aren’t supposed to kiss other girls,” Lauren blurts out, figuring that now she’s started revealing her secrets she might as well continue. “And now Camila won’t look at me the same.”

“When did this happen?”

Lauren shrugs. “A few years ago, on my birthday. Camila kissed me and told me happy birthday and—” She stops herself there, not ready to reveal the most sacred moment in her life so far yet. “When Dinah and Normani came back from the bathroom Dinah caught us and she asked if we’d kissed. Camila said we hadn’t, and then Dinah went like, ‘Good. Girls are not supposed to kiss other girls’.” Her voice catches in her throat when she realizes she’s still got the exact words memorized. 

When she looks up, her mom is looking back with sad eyes. “Dinah’s wrong. Sometimes girls kiss other girls and sometimes boys kiss other boys. There may be laws against love, but there aren’t any rules. People can’t help who they fall in love with, and one day everyone will know that.”

“I don’t think Camila knows.”

Her mom tucks a strand of hair behind Lauren’s ear, pressing a kiss against her forehead. “She will, one day. She’s only twelve, and you’re still just thirteen, even though sometimes you don’t sound like it. There’s still plenty of time to figure things out.”

Lauren sighs, leaning into her mother’s embrace. She knows her mom’s right—they’re still young. They’re not even in high school yet. But she’s never been surer about anything than the way she feels about Camila. She doesn’t want to lose her. She really doesn’t.

 

 

Here’s the thing: losing Camila is not a fast process. It’s like putting a frog in cold water and heating up the pan until the water boils and the frog is cooked. And Lauren doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late. 

 

 

It starts long before Lauren knows what’s happening, but it becomes apparent one afternoon when they’re walking home from school. Dinah and Normani both live a block or two closer than Lauren and Camila, and the last ten minutes it’s always just the two of them.

Lauren has been wanting to slip her hand into Camila’s for as long as she can remember, but she never actually does it. They’re in public, which means someone could see them—she wants to spare herself the pain of Camila pulling away before their fingers really intertwine.

“Camz?” 

Camila looks up, her dark eyes flickering up to Lauren’s face.

“I talked to my mom,” Lauren says, needing to get it out of her system. She hates keeping secrets from Camila. “About what Dinah said.”

Camila frowns. “Dinah says a lot of things every day.” 

“You know what I’m talking about.” Lauren looks down at her hands, dries her palms on her jeans. Maybe Camila wants to lie to herself and insist Dinah’s words aren’t burned in her mind forever, but they are for Lauren and she’s not the one who looks away every time their eyes lock.

Camila quickens her pace. “We’re in public, Lo. We can’t talk about that now.”

“There’s no one around. No one will hear us, I promise.”

“We’re not going to talk about it,” Camila says with such finality in her words that Lauren almost doesn’t dare to continue. But she’s about to explode from all the different scenarios she’s made up in her mind that’ll definitely never happen if they don’t have this conversation.

She stops walking. “Camila, please hear me out.”

For a moment she doesn’t think Camila’s just going to keep walking, but then she slows down to a stop, a few feet away from Lauren. “What’s there to talk about? Dinah said some things. We were ten, Lauren.”

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Not a day has passed where I didn’t think about it. We don’t have to have a full conversation about it, but I do need you to know she was wrong. Sometimes girls kiss girls, and boys kiss boys. It happens, and it’s okay.”

Camila’s jaw clenches. She balls her fists. Her eyes are wide with the same fear Lauren still feels sometimes, deep down between the walls of her heart. “Who told you that?”

“My mom,” Lauren says. “She knows more about this stuff than Dinah. I trust her, Camz.”

“She’s  _wrong_.” Camila’s voice is sharp and seething with anger. “Did you tell her about everything else, too? Gosh, of course you did. I’m so stupid to think—” She moves, and suddenly she’s in front of Lauren, so close she could touch her if she wanted. “Don’t tell anyone else.  _Promise_   _me_  you’ll never tell anyone else.”

Lauren blinks. Camila’s eyes are desperate, practically begging her to promise. And they’re only twelve and thirteen. They’re not supposed to think about these things—they’re not supposed to be afraid of themselves. Lauren hates the way Camila hates herself.

“I promise,” she says, just above a whisper. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Camila relaxes, but only a little. She stares into Lauren’s eyes, tears forming in her own. She’s so close Lauren can see herself in the reflection of Camila’s pupils. She’s so close Lauren could kiss her.

“Never,” Camila says, making it sound like a question and a demand at the same time.

And somewhere in the back of her mind, Lauren can still hear that same voice asking for forever. She nods. “Never.”

 

 

It becomes worse the day they’re having a sleepover at Lauren’s house. It starts out like any other Wednesday, which means dinner with Lauren’s parents and Taylor and Chris, because Camila’s parents have to work late and because that’s how it’s always been.

It’s the end of the summer between junior high and high school for Lauren, and Labor Day is nearing. Soon Lauren won’t be able to see Camila while they’re walking to school together, or during lunch breaks, or after school when they walk back home. 

She tells herself that’s the reason she’s kind of staring—to remember. Because who knows what will happen next year? She’s going to have new experiences, and homework is going to pile up, and there will be house parties that she might get invited to if she surrounds herself with the right people. And it’s not like anyone will notice if she doesn’t take her eyes off Camila for extended periods of time. They’re all too busy eating and talking about mundane things like the weather and politics and food anyway. 

But when Lauren and Camila go upstairs to Lauren’s bedroom a to watch a movie on the crappy secondhand TV that was no longer of any use after Lauren’s parents finally got a flat screen a little while later, something's off.

Lauren notices it immediately. She’s tuned in to Camila’s frequency, catching onto everything that’s even remotely different than usual. Camila’s eyes don’t stay focused on the same spot for longer than a few seconds at a time, and she’s twitching her fingers like she does when she’s nervous.

“Is everything okay?” Lauren asks, climbing onto her bed. “You seem a little out of it.”

Camila blinks. Her voice is low and distant. “Yeah, I’m fine. What do you want to watch?”

Lauren studies Camila’s face. She looks into the eyes she’s been falling in love with for as long as she can remember, notices the way Camila’s hair is getting really long, longs for those lips against her own. She knows what it means now, kissing someone. It makes her wish she’d done it again, all those years ago. Now she barely remembers what it’s like to kiss Camila.

She decides it’s not worth the effort. If Camila wants to talk to her about whatever’s bothering her, she will. Pushing Camila never works, Lauren learned. “I don’t know. Mean Girls? To prepare for high school?”

“I’m not going to high school yet,” Camila says so quickly she almost interrupts Lauren. “Can we watch something else?”

Taken aback, Lauren nods. “Sure. Finding Nemo?” It’s an old favorite, one they’ve watched countless of times. One she knows Camila really likes—more than Mean Girls.

But Camila doesn’t seem as eager tonight. She nods, but it’s without the usual joy in her eyes.

Lauren crosses the room to put the DVD into the DVD player, and when she turns around Camila’s still at the edge of her bed. And when she climbs back into bed, Camila doesn’t really move. Not even when Lauren holds her arms open like she always does.

Lauren’s stomach turns. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with Camila, but she doesn’t want to ask again either. Normally she doesn’t mind facing confrontation, but with Camila rules don’t apply. So she leans back against her pillows and watches the movie with her arms wrapped around a stuffed animal instead of her favorite person in the whole wide world. 

They’re only at the part where Marlin meets Dory for the first time when Camila turns around abruptly. “You have to stop staring at me.”

Lauren pauses the movie. “Excuse me?"

“It’s weird. You’re always staring at me, and maybe you think I don’t notice, but I do. Maybe you think it’s okay, but it’s not.” Camila’s voice is shaking—her hands are, too. She doesn’t meet Lauren’s eyes.

“Uh—did something happen to make you upset?” Lauren asks, carefully.

Camila rolls her eyes. “I’m just tired of you looking at me like I’m made of gold, or something. You even did it at dinner tonight. It’s like—” She hesitates. “It’s like you’re in love with me.”

The tone in her voice makes Lauren want to throw up. She swallows in an attempt to get rid of the sour taste in her mouth, swallows the words that have been on the tip of her tongue since they were both six years old.

“I’m not in love with you,” she says, but it comes out so weak she doesn’t even believe it herself. “I’ll stop staring.”

“Good,” Camila says. She leans closer to Lauren, and for a moment Lauren’s heart stops beating, but it’s only to grab the remote and continue the movie.

Lauren still can’t really help staring at Camila because even when she’s saying words that make Lauren's chest ache until she can't breathe, she’s still the most beautiful thing Lauren has ever seen. At some point, though, Camila lets out an exaggerated sigh and almost turns around, and Lauren’s eyes are glued to the screen for the rest of the movie. 

Later that night Camila goes into the bathroom to get changed, and Lauren changes in her bedroom with the door closed. It’s painful, because they used to take baths together and now they can’t even be in the same room with just their underwear on.

Something has changed. Lauren doesn’t know what or why, but there’s a soft voice in the back of her head that tells her it was only a matter of time.

They don’t talk for hours after Camila comes back and they climb into Lauren’s double bed together. They don’t inch closer to each other until their shoulders are touching and their faces are so close they could kiss if they wanted. Instead they’re on opposite edges of the bed, and they don’t share a good night kiss because girls are not supposed to kiss other girls.


	2. Keana

In a way, high school turns out to be a relief for Lauren. Yeah, she can feel the social pressure to look presentable at all times, and there’s a lot of homework that makes her wish she hadn’t chosen some of the harder courses at the start of this year, but there is also a lot of people that aren’t Camila.

Not going to school with Camila anymore is actually one of the most freeing things that have ever happened to Lauren. Sometimes she can go days without feeling that familiar tugging in her chest, and sometimes she almost forgets how much it hurts. It makes it easier to take her mind off the way her heart still breaks every time she sees Camila from her bedroom window. 

She feels  _free_. 

Lauren hates thinking about Camila like she’s a prison, but being in love with her isn’t like it used to be. Now, more than ever, she just feels her body ache for everything she can’t have, and she’s not sure that will ever change. Not unless Camila does, too.

 

 

She meets Keana at softball tryouts. They’re the only freshmen and everyone else seems to know each other so they don’t really have a choice but to stick together. They stretch side by side, talking about how they’re enjoying high school so far. 

Lauren feels a lot lighter talking to Keana than talking to anyone she already knows. Part of the reason is that Keana doesn’t know Camila, but it’s also because she’s just a really nice person. 

“I was born in France,” she says in unaccented English. “My dad is French and my mom is American. It’s why I speak both French and English.”

Lauren smiles. “My mom spoke Spanish with me growing up, so sometimes I forget a word in English but I’ll know it in Spanish and it’s  _so_  frustrating.”

Keana’s eyes widen. “I’m the same with French. Does that thing happen to you, like when you’re angry, and suddenly you’re using two languages at the same time and no one takes you seriously because of it?” 

“ _All the time_ ,” Lauren cries out, a little too loud. She clasps her hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh at the looks people throw them, and when she looks up Keana is mirroring her. Her eyes are lit up with silly joy and it feels  _really_  great. 

It’s just that even though she made Normani smile just this morning, Lauren can’t disassociate her from Camila. It’s like Camila is the shadow of something missing every time she and Normani are hanging out. With Keana, though, there’s nothing there. She’s just a new person without painful memories attached to them, and Lauren happens to be in desperate need of someone like that.

So she sticks to Keana’s side while they run laps to show their stamina, and while they throw balls to prove they can actually throw a ball without hurting someone. They work together when they’re put on the same team for a practice game, and it ends up going so well the coach actually compliments them on their teamwork.

For the first time in a long time Lauren throws her arms around someone and doesn’t wish it was Camila.

After tryouts, Lauren takes a moment to catch her breath and put her hair up to try and cool off, putting her things in her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. Normani has cheerleading tryouts in a few minutes, and she promised to come watch on the bleachers for moral support. 

She spins around to look for Keana, spotting her a few yards over. She’s talking to a girl with long blue hair and a basket of softball gloves under her arm that looks way cooler than the Lauren and Keana combined.

Lauren watches them talk for a moment, her phone burning in her hand as a reminder of how little time she has until Normani’s tryouts start. Part of her wants to wait for Keana to see if she’s up for watching Normani with her, part of her doesn’t want to be late. She never really understood the appeal of dancing around in miniskirts, but Normani seemed to be excited about it, and Normani’s her best friend.

Her thoughts seem to pause there, because—that used to be Camila. No matter how much it hurt, if someone asked her about her best friend she’d always name Camila. But now it’s Normani, and in some fucked up kind of way that really sucks.

But Normani’s great, and she hasn’t been in love with Normani since she was six years old, so it’s probably for the best.

Lauren glances at her phone again. It’s almost time for Normani’s tryout, and she still has to find the gymnasium. And yet she’s standing here, staring at Keana and the blue haired girl like some kind of creep. Perhaps it’s better to just—

“Lauren,” Keana says, jogging over to her. “Sorry, that took a little longer than I intended. Are you free to hang out?”

Lauren frowns, starting to walk towards the school. “Not really. My friend is trying out for cheerleading in a few minutes.”

“What about after that?”

“Uh—” Lauren says, because she’s not used to people she doesn’t know wanting to hang out with her so badly they’re willing to sit through a cheerleading tryout for it. “I guess? Unless Mani wants to do something.”

Keana gives her a smile. “We can all do something together, if you’re up for it. And if this Mani chick is up for it, too.”

“Mani’s a social butterfly. She’ll be up for it.” Lauren holds open the main entrance door for Keana to enter. ”I don’t know where the gymnasium is, though.”

As the words leave her mouth, a group of girls in cheerleading outfits comes out of a classroom. Their skirts are shorter than Lauren expected, and she mentally kicks herself for the way her mouth goes dry at the sight. When she looks up at Keana, though, her eyes are glued to the skirts too. It makes her feel a little better for staring.

They decide to follow the cheerleaders without too much of a discussion, figuring they’ll lead them to the gymnasium. When they enter the room, the tryouts are about to start, and they climb onto the bleachers as quietly as possible.

Lauren searches the crowd of people down below, spotting Normani almost immediately. She looks slightly nervous, though not as nervous as some of the other people. Lauren waves until Normani sees her. 

Normani smiles back at her, but before they can start a conversation through eye contact alone, the cheerleading coach is making everyone stand in a triangle to do a routine they had to memorize from a YouTube video.

“Do you think we made the team?” Keana asks under her breath halfway into the routine.

Lauren looks at her. “Coach told us we were doing well, right? I think that counts for something.”

“I guess.” Keana pauses. “Ashley said she was impressed, too.”

“Ashley?”

Keana’s eyes widen a little, her lips hinting at a smile. “She’s the girl I was talking to. She’s a junior, and she’s been on the team since her freshman year, too.”

“The one with the blue hair?”

“Yep. She was really cool. Said she’d seen us play and that we reminded her of herself when she was first trying out,” Keana says, her eyes darting everywhere but Lauren’s face. She clears her throat and bites her lip, her cheeks turning a light pink color.

For a moment Lauren stares at her blankly. Then she almost literally feels a lightbulb turn on in her head and she blurts out a soft, “Oh.”

Keana glances at her, and Lauren gets the urge to be reassuring, somehow—to show Keana that she’s not one of  _those_ people. She’s not about to do to Keana what Dinah did to her all those years ago. Even if she’s wrong, even if Keana didn’t mean what she thought she meant, Lauren is filled with the need to prove herself, somehow.

Her palms are still sweaty and she still feels like she’s being put under the spotlight. She feels like anything she says now has the risk of exposing herself, and Keana would just know that Lauren  _gets it_ —in more ways than one. 

“She seemed like a nice girl,” is what she manages to say. It doesn’t feel like enough, but Keana nods, so Lauren continues, ”I liked her hair.”

Keana seems to relax next to her, and the smile she throws Lauren’s way seems relieved. “Yeah. It’s pretty, right?”

Lauren wants to agree. She wants to tell Keana that Ashley seems nice and that she really did look pretty, and ask Keana to tell her what it is about Ashley that is making her cheeks flush like that, but she  _can’t_.

She can’t, because her chest feels tight with memories of how Camila used to make her smile the way Keana was smiling just now, and that’s still a secret she’s holding close to her heart.

She can’t, because the first routine has ended and Normani is jumping and waving at her from the distance, and she takes the chance to wave back and point her out to Keana.

Down below, the cheerleading coach is lining everyone up again, this time for what seems to be the individual routines. According to Normani, who looked into this way more than Lauren ever looked into softball tryouts, they each get a minute to do whatever they think will impress the coach and the cheerleading captain. 

Lauren knows what Normani is going to do, because they spent four hours working on it two nights ago, and another three last night. And because she knows the routine by heart, she can’t stop her mind from drifting off again.

She looks over at Keana, suddenly worried about what impression she might have left on the girl for cutting off their conversation. But Keana doesn’t look particularly mad or sad or upset or anything, and even in the few hours that they’ve known each other Lauren’s learned Keana is not the most subtle of people.

Keana looks back at Lauren, giving her a soft smile. Her eyes are kind and understanding, and Lauren almost overanalyzes it, but then she recognizes Beyoncé starting to blast through the speakers. She forces herself to watch Normani do her routine and  _not_  think about whether Keana knows that she knows—or  _thinks_ that she knows.

Not everyone is as paranoid as she is, nor are they as terrified of their feelings, she reminds herself. Not everyone had someone fuck things up for them. Not everyone is like Camila.

 

 

They make the team. Keana drags her to the bulletin board during their lunch break a week after tryouts, and runs a finger along the list. Their names are right underneath each other’s, and they can’t stop from jumping in excitement, dancing around with their arms linked like they’re twelve years old. Lauren has to put effort into not squealing out of sheer happiness, and she’s honestly not sure she succeeds. 

Their happy dance is interrupted when Normani runs over and tackles Lauren into a hug, screaming something about needing a cheerleading outfit. Lauren looks from Normani to Keana and back to Normani, taking notice of how both their faces are lit up with smiles brighter than any she’s seen from Camila in a long time, and it’s so refreshing that she has to catch her breath.

Keana’s eyes smile at her, and Lauren can’t help but smile back.

 

 

She thinks it might be a crush, this jittery feeling she gets inside her chest every time she looks at Keana. In a way it reminds her of the way she feels when she sees Camila, but it’s not as bright and not nearly as complicated. 

For a while she takes note of things she does that would classify this as a crush—staring, not-so-accidental touching, laughing a little too loud at Keana’s jokes. She’s never had a crush before. With Camila it happened without her even realizing it, and one day she just  _knew_ she was in love with her. 

She almost wants it to be a crush, even though Keana likes Ashley. Even though Lauren knows she’s just setting herself up for more heartbreak. Even though her heart still jumps every time she sees Camila. 

But one day after practice she and Keana are hanging out on the bleachers while some of the other girls are still practicing their pitches, and Lauren needs to pee. She wants Keana to come along, but Ashley is among the girls on the field below and Keana wants to watch, so she goes alone.

When she comes back she nearly trips over an abandoned softball glove in the middle of the field even though everything else is cleaned up and everyone is gone. 

Everyone, except two people on the bleachers.

She is not sure what she expects when she’s met with the sight of Keana and Ashley making out. There’s no twinges in her chest, no bitterness in her mouth—only the widening of her eyes and then, slowly, the ghost of a smile on her lips.

There’s also this jittery feeling at the back of her mind that makes her nervously look around to make sure no one else is seeing them. She realizes with a start that she’s letting that same old fear come back, the same one that always makes her keep her eyes stuck to the back of her locker when changing into her softball uniform.

She pushes away the tiny voice in the back of her mind that tells her something’s going to go wrong. No one else is there, and Ashley is pulling Keana closer, and Lauren realizes, with a start, that she’s  _happy_  for her friend.

She can’t imagine being happy if she ever found Camila kissing someone else, so she picks up the abandoned glove from the ground and leaves to give them some privacy.

Her chest feels weird, because she can’t fool herself into thinking she has a crush on Keana anymore. And—that was the first time she’d seen two girls kissing for real, and so much about it makes her feel all sorts of tingly: how soft and easy it looked, for instance. How nothing had gone wrong

 

 

She gets used to it.

She never would’ve thought it to be possible, but Ashley and Keana have been a thing now for a few weeks, and them being together has just become another normal fact about her life now.

Seeing Ashley hanging out beside Keana’s locker when she gets there is as expected to her now as how horrible the cafeteria chicken tastes when they have it on the menu for the second day in a row, or how gruesome softball practice will probably be when Coach is wearing sunglasses.

She’s happy for them—for Keana, especially, because the grin on her face when she’s talking about her girlfriend makes Lauren smile every time. But she’s also happy for Ashley, who Lauren now knows a lot better given how much time they spend together because of Keana. 

Granted, Lauren is pretty sure Ashley wouldn’t necessarily choose to have her always tagging along with her and Keana during the day—she figures having a constant third wheel can be a bit of a damper. On the other hand, Lauren’s become acutely aware of how much more subtle two of them are with their affections when Lauren’s not with them in public.

They don’t kiss in public, not really, and sometimes they don’t hold hands when they’re out on the streets. It’s like Lauren is their buffer—when she’s with them it’s safe to act a little more affectionate. When she’s not, they’re under the spotlight, and all their actions are being analyzed. So they play it safe. They keep their distance.

Lauren doesn’t think it’s necessarily a decision as much as an instinct. Fight or flight. And, given the circumstances, it’s usually flight.

It’s always flight with Camila, and Lauren is still getting used to it being different with Keana and Ashley.

Because there’s plenty of fight in them. There’s fight in Ashley’s eyes when they harden at someone snickering their way, or in the way Keana tightens her grip on Ashley’s hand when some jock bumps into them ’by accident’. There’s fight in how, no matter what, they always part ways with a smile and a soft touch—even if just a brush of fingertips over the other’s arm.

It kind of makes the will to fight bubble up inside Lauren’s chest, too.

 

 

She doesn’t see Camila a lot now that they go to different schools, even though they’re still neighbors and her bedroom window still faces Camila’s like it always has. She sort of makes it a point not to stare and see if she catches any movement—she  _is_  trying to move on, after all.

But sometimes she sees Camila on the street in front of her house, or in her backyard, or through the window, and there’s always this moment where she stops and stares and tries to  _see_  her. Like, figure out her thoughts and feelings and emotions and catch up on everything she’s missed. 

She hates not knowing what’s going on in Camila’s life anymore. She hates the fact that she still feels this way about the girl she hasn’t really spoken to in months. She hates that, somehow, she hasn’t been able to fully move on yet.

Because her heart still leaps when she gets home from school one day and Camila’s on the front porch of her own house, fumbling with the keys. Her hair is longer, and even though she’s facing away from Lauren, it’s pretty obvious she’s frustrated.

Lauren wants to say hi, to wave, to call out her name. But things have changed and she’s not sure if any of that is okay anymore.

There’s a tug in her chest when Camila finally opens the door and disappears inside that makes Lauren realize she misses Camila more than anything else, even though she’s right there. In theory she could throw all caution in the wind and knock on her door and talk to her about all the new music she’s been listening to these past few months. In theory they don’t have to stay in the past tense.

In practice, Lauren tears her eyes away from Camila’s house and pushes Camila to the back of her mind, telling herself the all too familiar lie that she’s okay.

 

 

She’s not sure whether it’s a dream or a nightmare when she sees Camila through the bedroom window later that day. It could be a dream because Camila looks absolutely  _beautiful_ , and it could be a nightmare because she’s not alone.

Lauren may not be within hearing distance, but it’s very clear that Camila does not hate Dinah Jane the same way Lauren does. It’s obvious because they’re laughing and dancing together, hands clasped tightly as they move around the room, and Camila seems more relaxed around Dinah than she ever did around Lauren.

The sight of Camila and Dinah having fun together is like electricity running through Lauren’s veins. She hates the sight, but she can’t get herself to stop watching. It feels like forever since she’s seen Camila laugh like that, carefree and  _happy_ , and if it had been with anyone else she would’ve been delighted. Now it just feels like a stab in the stomach.

It’s not that she hates  _Dinah_  per se, it’s just that every time she sees Camila she can still hear Dinah saying, “Girls are not supposed to kiss other girls,” and every time she catches Keana and Ashley showing even the slightest PDA there’s a jab of anxiety before she realizes no one really gives a shit. 

She really doesn’t understand how Camila can just pretend like none of that ever happened. She doesn’t understand why Camila still wants to hang out and be seen in public with Dinah, but not with her. 

Lauren blames Dinah for the way things went down between her and Camila, even though she knows, realistically, that it’s not  _really_  her fault. She didn’t say what she said back then to make any of this happen. But it did happen, and Lauren isn’t ready to forgive anyone for that—not Dinah, not Camila, not herself.

Until seeing the two of them together she already felt like she’d lost Camila, the girl she fell in love with. Now, however, she feels like Camila—her  _best friend_  Camila—was stolen from her, and she doesn’t know who she’s angrier at for it.

 

 

Lauren’s pretty sure she’s going to get scolded by Coach for being late to practice, even if she’s just four minutes late as she walks onto the field. Coach is pretty strict when it comes to their schedule, but Lauren had gotten tied up helping Normani with a wardrobe emergency. (She has to remember to get her sweater back from her later.)

It seems like there is enough of a commotion happening for Coach not to have noticed her absence, though. The girls are all scattered around the field, talking loudly amongst themselves, and she can hear Coach and Ashley trying to talk over everyone.

“What’s going on?” she asks, coming to a halt next to Keana, who’s standing aside from everyone watching with arms crossed.

“Ash got the yearbook committee to include more of the softball team in the yearbook,” Keana explains, as everyone seems to quiet down. “We’re supposed to take some pictures now.”

“Now?” Lauren asks, and she runs a hand through her hair self-consciously, getting a sympathetic smile from Keana at it.

“Hey Jauregui,” Ashley calls, walking over to them with an arm slung across the shoulders of a short girl next to her. “You can go ahead and thank me—you’re going to be featured in the yearbook with your kick ass team!”

“Uh,” Lauren says, accepting the fist bump Ashley is offering and glancing at the girl rolling her eyes good naturedly from under Ashley’s arm.

“You won’t have to worry about us only getting mentioned in the foot notes of the football team’s full feature, will you look at that,” Ashley says, grinning over at Keana and looking down at the short girl next to her. “Ally here agreed that all the sports teams should get some more space in the yearbook—all thanks to me, of course.”

“Not exactly,” Ally says, slapping Ashley on the stomach lightly but throwing Lauren and Keana a wide grin. “But yes, you guys deserve it.”

“Come on, let’s take some pictures and make those football dipshits look like dirt on the yearbook,” Ashley says, letting go of Ally and wrapping her arms around Lauren and Keana instead to drag them over towards the rest of the team.

Despite all the girls having a minor meltdown about not getting an early warning to get themselves ’picture ready’, they all huddle together and follow the photographer’s instructions to get a few group pictures done.

The forced smile Lauren gives the camera at first feels more natural when she feels her team mates pressing in against her, laughing and joking around. The photographer seems annoyed when they make one too many joking poses, flexing their arms and making faces, but Ally laughs from next to him and gives them a thumbs up, and they all part with loud laughs, any stray strands of hair forgotten as they playfully shove each other.

The photographer shakes hands with their coach and leaves them to it, but Lauren notices Ally hanging around with a camera while Coach explains what she wants from them this practice.

“Girls,” Coach calls loudly, snapping her fingers until everyone is looking over at her. “As you may have noticed, Allyson will be taking some pictures while you practice today. I don’t want that affecting your performance. Our match is in a week’s time, so I need you to give your all, and I don’t care if it’s not photogenic.”

Everyone mutters in assent and moves to their positions as Coach starts them off, and soon enough Lauren forgets about Ally walking around the sidelines with a camera, too busy rolling around in the dirt to care about her hair.

They throw balls back and forth while putting increasingly larger distances between each other, and discuss strategies for the upcoming game and flirting with people at parties.

By the time they get in position for a short practice game, Lauren’s covered in sand and sweat, and her right arm feels like it’s about to fall off. But she’s on first base today, so she can’t afford to slack off. Keana and Ashley are both on the team at bat, and she doesn’t want to lose to them today and hear about it for the rest of the week.

Nothing significant happens during the first half of the game. Lauren’s arm is definitely going to fall off by the end of practice, but seeing her teammates eyes light up when she takes out a few players before they can even reach first base is worth the pain.

They’re only behind a few points when Keana walks up to the home plate and picks up the bat. Her eyes are focused on the pitcher, and Lauren just  _knows_  she’s going to put in extra effort to get past first base before the next batter is up.

She smirks, her competitive spirit coming at play.

The pitcher swings her arm back and throws the ball with such ease it looks like she’s not even trying.

Lauren sees Keana’s eyes follow the ball, and watches as she tightens her grip on the bat. There’s a loud clatter when she lands the hit, and then the ball is flying through the air, past all the field players—even the ones far back. It’s a great hit, and Lauren can’t help but stare wide eyed as Keana runs past her with a, “See you in Loserfield, Jauregui.”

Everyone on Lauren’s team is running as fast as they can to get the ball back to the pitcher, but it’s a lost cause. Keana is swift as lightning, and somehow she’s back at the home base just a few moments before the ball is in the hands of the pitcher.

A wave of frustrated groans and ecstatic screams rings through the field, and Lauren smiles despite herself when she sees Keana running towards Ashley like a soccer player that just scored the winning goal. They throw their arms around each other, and from the corner of her eye, Lauren catches sight of Ally taking a picture.

There’s a fluttering in her stomach as she notices Ally capturing the moment when Ashley lifts Keana in her arms, the now all-too familiar nervousness for her friends settling in. When Ally lowers the camera and looks at it, though, she has a wide smile on her lips, and Keana’s laughter is so loud and bright Lauren feels herself grin at it.

She decides she likes Ally. There’s something calm and soothing about the way she just casually snaps pictures of two ridiculously in love girls celebrating a homerun. It’s not something she’s used to yet—other people being okay with it. 

Ally catches her eyes just as Lauren gets back in position for the next batter, and she holds her gaze as she smiles and lifts up her camera. For a moment Lauren’s confused, but then she quickly fixes her hair, and puts on her game face. Ally laughs as she takes a picture, giving her a thumbs up and another smile.

Ally stays through the entire practice game, and when it’s over she thanks the team for their cooperation. Ashley tries to take credit again and ends up being chased around the field by some of their other team mates while Keana and Lauren stay behind with Ally to look at the pictures.

Most of them turned out either blurry or with someone making a really weird facial expression, but there are a few really good ones—including the picture of Keana and Ashley celebrating Keana’s first ever homerun.

“I like this one,” Ally says. “Is it okay with you and Ash if I put it in?”

Keana’s eyes flicker to Lauren’s, and Lauren understands immediately. Despite the fact that it’s really cool they’re going to be featured, yearbooks aren’t the safest place to have your picture in, considering everyone is going to have access to them.

“Uh,” Keana says, looking over her shoulder to where Ashley is being tackled to the ground. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

Ally shrugs. “I think that if we can include a posed picture of the Homecoming King and Queen we can include a spontaneous picture of two girls who are genuinely happy. But if you don’t want me to put it in I totally understand.”

Keana looks conflicted. She calls out Ashley’s name, quickly explaining the situation. Ashley doesn’t seem the least bothered about it, but there’s a look in her eyes that says she cares more about Keana’s opinion than her own in this.

“Can I see the picture again?” she asks, reaching out for the camera.

They all huddle around her and Lauren tries her best to look at the picture as if she doesn’t know her friends the way she does. In it, Keana’s face is buried in Ashley’s neck just as she’s being lifted off the ground, and to anyone who doesn’t know they’re dating it probably looks innocent enough.

Still. If it were her and Camila, Lauren wouldn’t want the picture to be included for the whole school to see and judge. But she and Camila are still on a whole other level—like, they’re not really on  _any_  level right now—so she’s not too surprised when Keana and Ashley nod after sharing a long look.

Ally’s lips curl up into a smile, and she hugs them both even though they’re sort of gross and sweaty from practice. She hugs Lauren too, and Lauren’s surprised at how tiny she actually is.

“I think the page is going to be even better now,” Ally says. “And if you change your mind just let me know.”

Lauren feels her stomach settle as they walk off the field towards the locker room. It’s shitty how much other people’s opinions bother her, but she’s slowly getting better at handling them. And maybe one day she won’t hear Dinah’s voice in the back of her head every time she sees Keana and Ashley holding hands.

 

 

Sometimes Lauren catches Camila looking at her.

Like, when Lauren is doing her homework at her desk, or when she and Normani are having a sleepover. 

It gives her hope that maybe, just maybe, Camila might miss her too, even if just a little. It wouldn’t actually be hard to figure out, because Normani is still friends with both Camila and Dinah, though they’re not as close as they used to be. She could just  _ask_  her, if she really wanted to.

But they don’t really talk about it anymore. Before, back when they were still just starting out in high school, Normani tried to bring it up a few times, but Lauren cut her off until she stopped asking.

Lauren doesn’t think Normani knows what happened between her and Camila, or between her and Dinah, and she doesn’t want to explain it either. As much as she kind of wishes Normani would stop being friends with them, she also knows she doesn’t have the right to decide who Normani should or shouldn’t hang out with. The fact that Normani is  _her_  best friend is enough to pretend they didn’t used to be a group of four.

They  _are_  a group of four again now, anyway. Lauren realizes that with a start one day, when they’re in her backyard trying and failing to help Normani practice a new dance routine—Ashley is sat next to Lauren on the grass, laughing as Normani tries to help Keana to lift her foot above her head, and Lauren realizes that this is her group of people now.

It’s different. She doesn’t have Camila, and she doesn’t have to pretend. Even though she hasn’t  _come out_  yet, she knows these people will accept her if she does. The fact that Normani never even batted an eye when she realized Keana and Ashley weren’t just talking with their faces very close to each other helps a lot, actually. It’s different, but in a way it’s better. 

It’s better, because Keana’s foot is slipping and she’s losing her balance. It’s better, because Ashley is clasping her hands over her mouth to keep herself from laughing. It’s better, because Normani has a confused look on her face like she can’t possibly understand how some people  _can’t_  raise their leg in the air like it’s no big deal.

It’s better because she doesn’t have Camila. It’s worse because she doesn’t have Camila.

For a while she managed to trick herself into thinking things were getting better and high school was going great and she didn’t need Camila, and maybe she doesn’t—but she  _misses_  her. She doesn’t miss the way Camila makes her feel, because she doesn’t need Camila to be present to feel that way, but she misses her as a constant in her life. As much as she hates Camila, she loves her even more. 

Lauren’s gaze wanders up to the part of Camila’s bedroom window that she can see from where she’s sitting on the grass, her eyes widening when she realizes Camila’s already staring back at her.

There’s a pang deep inside her chest, and she freezes as she stares up at her, and Camila stares back. There’s so much distance between them, but Lauren feels like she’s right back at the start—standing in front of Camila and losing her breath because of her all over again.

She sees Camila turning her gaze to look to the side, then, and when she looks over to check what caught her attention, she sees Keana falling onto Ashley’s lap with a wide smile.

It’s nothing new—not to her and Normani, but when she looks back up towards Camila’s window, her throat tightens in fear.

They haven’t spoken to or seen each other in months, but even from a distance Lauren can see Camila closing herself off. And, just like that, Lauren feels like she’s back at square one, fighting the urge to jump up and tell Keana and Ashley to keep their distance from each other. That, whatever they do, they can’t kiss each other in public. She knows it’s ridiculous, and she knows it shouldn’t matter that Camila’s watching, but she can’t help that it does.

Her heart grows heavy when she sees Keana and Ashley leaning in to kiss. She looks up to Camila again, clenching her jaw at the mixture of disgust, fear, and anger on her face. She gets the compulsion to get up and storm up to Camila’s bedroom and tell her it’s okay that sometimes girls kiss girls, that she doesn’t have to be afraid, but she’s completely paralyzed.

It’s Camila who looks away first. She shoots Keana and Ashley one last glance, and even though they aren’t kissing anymore, the look on her face doesn’t change. It reminds Lauren of the way she looked at her in their last real conversation, almost a year ago, when Camila made her promise never to tell anyone. 

Then Camila disappears from the window completely, and Lauren’s left with a forced smile on her face and a dull, throbbing pain in her chest like a wound that never fully healed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sneakily adding an A/N here, do you think Ems will notice? 
> 
> Thanks for reading, yall.  
> -frings
> 
> i noticed :')
> 
> but yes, thanks for all the hits, comments, kudos, bookmarks...so many ways to show us people like this


	3. Ally

Lauren almost expects something grand to happen the first time she sets foot in the cafeteria as a sophomore. And sure, there are a few differences; Ally is gone, and there are a bunch of new, curious faces that turn to look at her as she passes.

But nothing different really happens. Keana and Ashley are still at the same table, a little closer to each other than most people, and Normani is still staring at the sign that says today there will be mac ‘n cheese for lunch with the same old sad look of longing.

Lauren plops down next to her friends, reaching into her bag to grab her sandwiches. As an athlete she’s supposed to eat healthy or whatever, so she prefers to bring her own food from home rather than buying it at school. “Hey.”

“Jauregui,” Ashley smirks, her arm loosely wrapped around Keana’s waist. “Tell Mani her ass looks great in that cheerleader outfit.”

Lauren glances down at Normani’s butt. “Your ass looks great in that cheerleader outfit. But why are you wearing it right now?”

Normani rolls her eyes. “Early morning practice. Couldn’t be bothered to take it off. Probably proves Coach’s point that we’re out of shape.”

“Objection,” Keana says. “You practiced all summer with us. I can  _still_  feel the bruise on my ass from that one time you were convinced you could lift me like one of your cheer buddies.”

Lauren smiles, watching as her friends bicker. She didn’t get the chance to miss them over the summer—they hung out pretty much every day except for when they each went on separate vacations with their families. She does, however, miss Ally a little.

After that one practice Ally was at to take pictures, they kept seeing each other in hallways and during lunch, and it somehow made Lauren feel really cool that a senior hung out with her. But Ally graduated a few months ago and started attending college for something music related, which Lauren thinks is even cooler.  

“Hey, Lo, where’s your mind at?” Keana asks, nudging Lauren’s foot under the table. Somehow she always seems to notice when something’s off. It’s both comforting and confronting at the same time.

Lauren blinks. “Just missing Ally. It’s so weird that she’s off to live a really cool life in college now.”

Keana glances at Ashley, who’s saying something about getting a new tattoo to Normani, and she cracks a smile. “I mean, she’s still in Florida, so it’s not  _that_  far away. And she said she’d be coming back every other weekend for laundry and stuff, so we can see her then.”

Ashley looks up, probably catching on to the way Keana is looking at her. She reaches out to squeeze Keana’s hand, tightening her grip on Keana’s waist. “Don’t think about that stuff yet. I don’t even know what I’m gonna do after graduation, and until I figure it out I’m staying right here with you.”

Keana leans into Ashley’s touch and Lauren looks away. She hates seeing her friends sad, even if she knows Keana and Ashley always talk about everything and that if anyone will be able to work through one of them graduating high school this year, it’ll be them.

“It’s okay,” Keana says in a soft voice. “At least I can say my girlfriend is a senior now and have people think I’m really cool.”

Ashley laughs and she looks like she’s about to kiss Keana when they’re interrupted by a loud voice.

“Come on, Walz. I see Lauser and Mani over there.”

Lauren’s head snaps up just in time to see two all too familiar faces heading their way. Next to her, Normani’s eyes light up, and she scoots a little closer to Lauren to make room at their table.

“Mani,” Dinah says, wrapping her arms around Normani’s shoulders. “Look, we’re finally all going to the same school again! Middle school was really boring without you and Lauser.”

Lauren clenches her jaw. Dinah’s eyes are a little too excited for the first day of school, and even the sight of her is annoying. Lauren’s been dreading this moment for a week, knowing that at some point she was going to end up running into Dinah and Camila. She’d just hoped it wouldn’t be the first day back.

Normani clearly doesn’t share the same concerns, though, considering the way she’s smiling brightly at their old friends. 

On the other side of the table, Keana and Ashely have broken apart and are staring at Dinah like she’s a crazy person.

But Lauren’s eyes aren’t on Dinah anymore—they’re on Camila, who’s sitting herself down next to Keana and Ashley. Camila’s looking back at her with a guarded expression, and Lauren can see some of her own discomfort reflected on her face. 

It’s the first time they’ve been in such close proximity in over a year. Hell, it’s the first time they’ve been in the same  _room_ since they started going to different schools.

Lauren has to force herself to look back down at her food to catch her breath, but she can’t keep herself from glancing back up at Camila again. Her heart skips a beat when she realizes that Camila is looking at her, too, a small, shy smile spreading across her lips.

“Hey,” Camila says, and Lauren realizes with a start that her voice is different than how she remembers it. It sounds off to her ears, somewhat lower and rougher. More mature.

Lauren nods once, forcing herself to stay calm and act like nothing’s wrong. “Hello Camila.”

“Lo!” Dinah says, leaning forward to look at Lauren past Normani. She’s clearly legitimately excited to be here, and Lauren’s gut twists at the realization that, in Dinah’s eyes, probably the only reason they ignored each other’s existence for a whole year is the fact that they went to different schools. She gives Dinah a strained smile, not even trying to come across as civil.

Dinah, however, doesn’t seem to notice anything is wrong. In fact, her smile widens at Lauren’s acknowledgement. “I haven’t seen you in forever. Damn girl, you’re looking hella fine.”

The sight of Dinah’s grin has Lauren balling her fists before she even realizes it, anger welling up in her. She really wants topunch the grin off of Dinah’s face, but Normani is faster, finally noticing the tension in the air. 

She puts her hand over Lauren’s and gestures at the newcomers to get everyone’s attention. ”Keana and Ashley, these are Dinah and Camila. They’re—uh—our friends from middle school. Dinah, Mila, this is Keana and that’s Ashley. They’re on the softball team with Lauren.”

Camila’s shoulders tense a little when Normani introduces them all, and Lauren hates the way she’s still hyper aware of everything Camila does. She hates the way she still physically feels Camila’s every move.

“You play softball?” Camila asks.

Lauren nods, but before she can say anything, Ashley frowns. “Hold up. You say you’re all friends, but she doesn’t know Lo’s on the team? Lo, like, literally never shuts up about it.”

Lauren lets out a sharp breath. “Just never came up, I guess.”

Camila shoots her a sort of thankful glance, and Lauren’s heart starts hammering against her chest. She wasn’t prepared for a run-in with Camila today. Her sudden presence is overwhelming, and Lauren wasn’t ready to have this—her group of friends, her school, her safe haven—be infiltrated by Camila and Dinah. 

She can’t do this.

With more force than necessary, she shoves her sandwich back into its wrapper and stumbles as she gets out of her seat. “I—uh—I gotta use the bathroom. Excuse me.”

She curses at herself for the way her voice shakes, and she feels everyone turning to stare at her as she rushes out of the cafeteria. To make things even more embarrassing, she nearly trips on her way out with everyone’s stares burning holes in her back.

Her chest feels tight, and the lump in her throat is almost too big to swallow. There’s still some leftover anger in her veins, her arms aching to punch something—or someone—and the aggression burning in her lungs is enough to blur her sight with hot tears.

She hates that Camila still makes her knees weak and her heart thump. She hates that Camila still hangs out with Dinah and she hates that Dinah doesn’t even seem to  _know_  what she did.

She barely makes it to the bathroom and into a stall before her knees buckle and she sinks down onto a closed toilet lid, her head in her hands and her heart in her stomach.

She’s not going to cry. She’s  _not_  going to cry. She’s not—

“Lauren?” Keana’s voice fills the room, echoes against the tiles. “I know you’re in here. Are you okay?”

Lauren lets out a breath of relief. She trusts Keana with this, maybe even more than Normani. Keana doesn’t know Camila and Dinah, and she certainly doesn’t know anything about  _Camila and Lauren_.

Wiping her cheeks and hoping her eyes aren’t too red from crying, Lauren stands up. She hesitates, then opens the door of the stall. “I’m fine.”

Keana catches her eyes and looks at her—really looks at her. There’s a flash of something that looks a lot like realization in her eyes, but when she blinks it’s gone, replaced with concern.

Lauren can’t really handle being looked at like that, like she’s broken, but at the same time she still can’t really breathe, and Keana  _understands_. So before she can stop herself, she throws her arms around Keana’s shoulders, letting a few tears slip. 

Keana doesn’t say anything. She rubs Lauren’s back and holds her for as long as she needs, until Lauren starts pulling back.

“Are you okay?” Keana asks again, her hand still resting on Lauren’s arm.

Lauren wipes her face, giving her a weak smile. “I will be.”

Keana nods once. Her eyes narrow under a furrowed brow.”I’m not going to assume anything here, but if you want to talk—about  _anything_ —I’m here. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Lauren says, and for the first time in almost two years she feels the words in her mouth, threatening to come out from where she’s kept them close to her heart. It would be so easy to say them, to let Keana be the first person she tells. But Dinah’s impact is still too strong, and she feels the weight of it pulling down her tongue. She swallows the lump in her throat. “Maybe one day.” 

Keana smiles at her with so much understanding on her face that italmost makes everything even worse, because Lauren is not the only one who’s ever felt this way.

Ashley must have felt the same one day, too, even though she doesn’t seem to struggle with her feelings anymore. Keana sometimes still hesitates to hold Ashley’s hand in public. And Camila—whatever Lauren is feeling, Camila must feel it ten times worse.

“Thank you,” Lauren sighs.

“Of course,” Keana says. She squeezes Lauren’s arm and, after a moment, “We gotta stick together.”

And even though Lauren didn’t say anything, she knows that Keana knows, somehow, just like she knew about Keana a year ago.

It feels like a weight being lifted off her shoulders.

 

 

Now that they go to school together, there is no escaping Camila anymore. Sure, they don’t have the same classes, but with Dinah not realizing why Lauren can’t stand the sight of her and Normani being friends with all of them, they keep coming to their lunch table and hanging out after school.

And Lauren really doesn’t want to start pulling away from Normani, so she bites her tongue and pretends like everything is fine.

It gets easier after a while. She no longer feels a sharp ache in her chest every time she sees Camila, and she doesn’t have to mentally force herself not to ‘accidentally’ throw a softball in Dinah’s face every time they stay to watch them practice after school.

Dinah joins the cheerleading squad with Normani, and Camila apparently picked up playing the guitar somewhere in the past year, so she joins the school band—as in the actual band, not the marching band, like Lauren had thought at first.

Lauren makes sure she’s never alone with Dinah or Camila, which doesn’t end up being that hard because she’s pretty sure Keana told Ashley and now there’s always at least one of them saving her from awkward moments with the people she once called her best friends.

But she knows it’s bound to go wrong at some point, and it happens a few months into the new school year.

They had a late softball practice that day, and given Ashley and Keana live on the opposite direction as her from school, Lauren has to walk home by herself. She’s not even halfway there when she hears Camila’s voice calling out her name.

Her first instinct is to keep walking like she didn’t hear her, but she forces herself to slow down to a stop and allow Camila to catch up with her.

“Hey, how did practice go?”

Lauren shrugs, picking up her previous pace and prompting Camila to fall into step beside her. “It was just practice. Nothing special happened.” She eyes the guitar case on Camila’s back. “Did you have band practice?”

“Yep. We learned a new song today,” Camila nods. “Have you won a lot of games yet? I keep telling Dinah I want to go see you play, but she always has to watch her siblings and I don’t wanna go alone because that’s awkward.” Camila’s voice is strained, like she’s faking enthusiasm.

Lauren runs her hand through her hair, the memory ofthe last time they walked home from school togetherstill making it hard for her to breathe. “What do you want, Camila? Are we friends now or something? Because last time I checked you couldn’t even  _look_  at me before Dinah tugged you along to our table.”

Camila stops walking, a mixture of guilt and something Lauren can’t place flashing on her face. “I—uh. I wanted to talk to you about something, actually.”

And Lauren isn’t stupid enough to hope, but she still can’t stop her heart from leaping in her chest. “Sure. Shoot.”

Camila blinks, like she didn’t expect Lauren to give in that easily. “Uh, it’s about your friends, Keana and Ashley? I overheard some people talking about them yesterday… They said, uh—they said they made a really cute couple.”

Of course.

Lauren really doesn’t want to talk about her girl friends that are dating each otherto Camila, so she shrugs. “They  _are_  a cute couple. What’s your point?”

Camila glances down at her feet. “I just wasn’t sure what kind of couple they were talking about, I guess.”

Lauren looks at her then. Somehow Camila still manages to find ways that would mean girls can’t be in love with other girls, and it’s really starting to get old. Keana and Ashley have kept their PDA to a minimum after Camila and Dinah started hanging out with them, only comfortable enough to be themselves when it was just Lauren and other close friends like Normani, but there’s something in the way they almost sync up everything they do that makes it hard for Lauren to understand how anyone could  _not_  notice.

“What are you trying to do here, Camila?” she asks in a shaky voice. “I know you’ve seen them kiss. You were looking at me, and they were in my backyard and they kissed. I know you saw them, because you looked at me like you’d seen the world burn in front of your eyes, and then you disappeared.”

Camila clenches her jaw. “Why are you making it sound like I’m the bad guy? I just wanted to know—”

“You wanted to know if my friends are dating. Well, they are. They’re in love and they’re dating, and they just happen to both be girls. It’s not the worst thing in the world, Camila.” Lauren knows she should probably keep her voice down and try to be reasonable, but it’s hard when Camila’s been unreasonable for years—destroying friendships in the process. Friendships, and Lauren’s heart.

Camila’s eyes widen when Lauren mentions them both being girls, and she takes a step backwards, physically distancing herself from Lauren. “It’s  _wrong_. Girls are not supposed to kiss other girls.”

“Oh my god,” Lauren whispers, ignoring the way her heart is shattering into a million pieces. For nearly four years she’s been repeating those same words in her head, but for the first time they’re being voiced by Camila instead of Dinah. And it hurts, more than she wants to admit. Because it’s one thing knowing Camila is affected by them, but it’s another to know she actually  _believes_  them.

“She was  _wrong_ , Camila. Dinah was  _wrong_. She had no idea what she was talking about. She was  _ten_.” Lauren looks up, taking in Camila’s tiny figure and the way she’s almost literally trembling. “I know it messed with your head, it messed with mine, too, but not everyone thinks like that. Most people are actually okay with it these days. No one gives a shit who you like—whether it’s a girl or a guy or whatever. I don’t  _care_  about Keana and Ashley being in love, because they’re  _in love_. Love is one of the most beautiful things in the world, and they’re lucky enough to have it with each other. No one has the right to tell you it’s not okay to love someone. It doesn’t matter what Dinah said when we were kids. What matters is that you realize she was wrong and that there should be nothing holding you back from being with the person you’re in love with.”

Lauren takes a deep breath, attempts to swallow the lump in her throat. Everything she’s saying she wishes someone would’ve told her. And maybe it was easier for her because her mom promised her what Dinah said was irrelevant, and maybe Camila didn’t have someone like that a few years ago, but she has to at least try. 

Her eyes flicker up to Camila’s, and she wants to throw up, because the look in Camila’s eyes is sickening.

“This isn’t about what Dinah said.” Camila’s voice is sharp, defensive. “This is about what’s right and wrong, and the fact that you think whatever your friends think they’re doing is done out of  _love_  is proof of how manipulative they are. Just because they tell you something is okay doesn’t make it okay. If they all tell you it’s fine to jump off a bridge, you don’t jump off the fucking bridge. You use common sense to realize they’re lunatics who are just trying to lure you into the dark side of whatever the fuck they’re doing.”

Camila’s words make Lauren’s blood boil, and for a moment she can completely disregard whatever feelings she has for her.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says, her voice dripping with anger. “Do you realize you just called my friends disgusting lunatics? The people that actually give a shit about me, rather than pretending I don’t exist out of fear? You don’t know them, and you have absolutely no right to say anything about them.”

Camila looks at her, lips parted like she’s trying to come up with something to say. Then her body language changes, and she takes a step forward, squaring her shoulders. Her eyes are shooting venom as she shakes her head. “Why are you getting so defensive? Are you like them, too, or something?”

Lauren’s breath catches in her throat. “What?”

“Are you a lesbian, too, Lauren? Is that why you insist it’s fine, because you know you’re wrong and now you’re trying to make it seem like everyone else is the bad guy? Is that it?”

And for a moment the world seems to stop spinning. Time freezes, and suddenly all Lauren can hear is an endless loop of Camila asking,  _“Are you a lesbian, too, Lauren?”_

Her chest feels tight and she stumbles a few steps backwards, her knees feeling like they’re about to give out. Her back hits a street lantern and she reaches behind her to steady herself, eyes wide as she watches Camila swallow and clench her jaw.

It’s not even the fact that she used the word lesbian. Yes, the word itself feels like a punch to the stomach, but it’s the way Camila said it that makes it a thousand times worse. Because Lauren can still hear Camila’s ice cold voice ringing in her ears, pronouncing the word with so much repulsion it sends shivers down her spine.

She watches as Camila’s eyes fill with tears, and her nostrils flare, and her mouth opens as if to mutter an apology. She watches as Camila seems to change her mind and recollects herself without a word. She watches as Camila does what she does best: run.

 

For the rest of the week Lauren manages to successfully dodge Camila. She eats lunch on the bleachers by the softball field and takes a detour every time she sees Camila in the hallways between classes. A little childish, maybe, but Camila’s broken her heart too many times, and she can’t bear the sight of her anymore.

She’s pretty sure Keana notices something’s off, because there are a few occasions where Keana is the one pushing Lauren in a different direction when they’re about to run into Camila. She likes that Keana always seems to know what’s up without having to say a word. It’s like she’s reading her mind in the non-creepiest way possible

So when Keana texts Lauren on a lazy Saturday afternoon while she’s lounging in the backyard with Chris and Taylor, Lauren isn’t surprised.

**_wanna go to a party?_ **

Lauren hesitates.  ** _Who else is coming?_**

**_just me ash and mani. no freshmen :)_ **

**_Okay, I’m in!_ **

 

 

Lauren’s never been drunk before. Usually she stops after a few beers, just enough to blur the edges and have some fun with her friends. But usually the pain of a broken heart is just a dull throb instead of a sharp knife carving out a Camila-shaped space in the walls of her ventricles.

So really, it’s not her fault when she stumbles into Normani after a few too many drinks.

Normani reacts immediately, wrapping her hands around Lauren’s wrists to steady her. “Woah, easy.”

Lauren turns a lazy grin her way. “Hi.”

Normani looks at her, studying her eyes. “How much have you had to drink?”

“A lot,” Lauren says. “There’s this guy and I think he’s secretly a bartender, because the drinks he makes me are so good.”

“Okay. I think it’s time to get you to sit down and drink some water,” Normani says, grabbing Lauren’s elbow and pulling her to the kitchen. She grabs a red cup and fills it with water, handing it over. “Are you okay, Lo?”

Lauren grabs the cup thrust her way and takes a small sip, letting herself wobble forward until she’s leaning heavily against Normani, forehead pressing against her shoulder. “No,” she says in a small voice. “I’m tired of her hurting me, Mani.”

She doesn’t realize how heavy the silence that follows is, not really. Her head is swimming, and her pulse seems to thrum through her entire body. The only thing she feels is the lightness the alcohol brings her, and that terrible dull feeling weighing heavy in her chest every time Camila’s voice rings in the back of her head. That, and Normani’s hand brushing her hair.

“Who hurt you, Lo?” Normani asks in a low voice, having to support nearly the entirety of Lauren’s weight as she leans heavily against her.

“Camz—Mila. Camila. I think she’s broken, and all she does is break me too,” Lauren says, her words slurring slightly. “I love her so much, Mani, but she—she thinks it’s wrong.”

Lauren’s throat grows tight at the thought of how  _angry_  Camila had gotten—how scared she’d looked. She thinks of Camila turning her back on her earlier this week, and she thinks of Camila pulling away from her on that trampoline all those years ago.

“How can she think that? How can—how can loving someone so much be wrong, Mani?” she asks, her voice growing heavy as she forces the words out even though her eyes are filling with tears. “She made me promise to love her forever, and now she—she doesn’t want me to anymore. But it’s too late now. Mani, it’s too late.”

Her voice cracks, and the tears fall, and all Lauren needs right then is to feel loved. There’s a gaping Camila-shaped hole in her heart, and she misses feeling whole. She doesn’t think she’s felt whole since her eleventh birthday.

She barely notices how Normani’s eyes went wide at her admission, too busy sniffling into her shoulder, but she definitely feels it when Normani pulls her closer and wraps her arms around her. The significance of it forces its way through the haze in her mind, because she just told her best friend that she’s in love with a girl, and she’s not being pushed away.

“You’re not wrong,” Normani says against her ear, hugging her tightly and brushing a hand through her hair. “Do you hear me, Lauren? You’re not wrong for loving someone. It’s not your fault she can’t see that.”

Lauren breathes in deeply, smelling the scent of her best friend mixed in with cheap beer and smoke, and her heart calms down. It still hurts, but the trickle of her tears is slow, and she didn’t realize how much she needed to hear that until now.

“Why can’t she see that,” she mutters weakly into Normani’s neck. ”I don’t know how to stop loving her. I—I wish I could.”

Everything seems to pause at that, because she has never allowed herself to think like that until now. With all Camila’s ever put her through, she’s always loved her—all she ever hoped for is that Camila would grow up and realize that she doesn’t have to hide from Lauren, and Lauren would still love her through it all, no matter how many times she had to piece her heart back together, because it would be worth it in the end.

But Camila doesn’t want that. Lauren can’t remember the last time Camila smiled her way, and it makes her so sad. She’s tired of being sad. 

“She asked me if I was gay with so much—she hates it so much,” Lauren admits, and she’s starting to feel stuffy pressing her face into Normani’s neck like this, but despite how tenderly Normani is holding her, Lauren still feels scared to ask what she wants to ask. “Would you—would you hate me, too?”

“No,” Normani says immediately. She doesn’t hesitate, she just squeezes Lauren tight, and Lauren almost starts crying again. “I wouldn’t care if you told me you wanted to marry a squirrel.” She chuckles, then, and pushes Lauren back slightly so she can look at her as she brushes Lauren’s tears off her cheeks gently. “I mean, I’d be a little worried for you, yeah, but I’d still love you.”

Normani’s smile is crooked as she teases her, and Lauren can’t help the wet chuckle she lets out. “No squirrels, I promise. I mean, I—I’m not sure yet if I’m…” she swallows, averts her eyes. “What I am,” she adds weakly, glancing back at Normani when all the girl does is run her hand down her arm softly. “But I’m pretty sure I’m not into squirrels.”

“Good,” Normani says, pressing a kiss against Lauren’s hair. “I love you, Lo.”

Lauren sniffles, wiping her cheeks. Telling Normani is a relief she never expected to feel. Somehow she’s grown used to expecting otherwise from the people around her—that telling them would always go wrong and make things worse. She knows it’s probably because the one person in the world she thought would always be by her side rejected her over it, and she’ll probably never stop resenting Camila for making her lose her faith.

She locks eyes with Normani again, smiling the best she can. “I love you, too, Mani. Thank you.”

Normani squeezes her hand before grabbing the empty cup from Lauren’s hand and filling it with water again. The dull throbbing in Lauren’s head has reduced considerably, so she leans lazily against the kitchen counter and closes her eyes as she finds herself able to breathe with ease again.

 

 

When she blinks her eyes back open, it’s because a voice she hasn’t heard in a while is greeting them. “Oh my—Ally,” she greets excitedly, an instant smile tugging at her lips when Ally grins and steps closer.

“Hi guys!” Ally wraps her arms around Lauren and Normani, pulling them both in for a group hug. She doesn’t comment on the fact that Lauren looks like a panda from all the crying, and Lauren breathes in the calm that always seems to hang around Ally.

“Woah,” she says when Ally lets go of them. “First of all, I’m a little drunk. Second of all, I really didn’t expect you to be here. Don’t you have cool people to hang out with now?”

Ally shrugs, still smiling. “Ashley said there’d be a party and you guys would come, so I figured why not. I miss y’all a lot.”

“We miss you, too,” Normani says, pressing the side of her head against Ally’s. With Ally being the only one in heels, they’re almost the same height now. “I think everyone does. But how’s college? Did you have crazy ass adventures yet?”

Ally laughs, and Lauren leans her head against the counter again. She listens to Ally talk about student life, and Normani curiously asking questions. With the three of them reunited, it feels like she’s a little more complete than before she went to the party. Before she said all those things to Normani. Before—

“Come on, Lo, we’re going dancing.” Normani grabs Lauren’s hand to pull her off the stool, tugging her back to the living room.

Someone moved the furniture to create a small dance floor near the DJ booth, and soon Lauren finds herself being squished between Ally and Normani. There’s too many people trying to dance and too little space, so everyone ends up mostly unable to move, but it’s still fun.

It’s enough to take Lauren’s mind off of Camila and the fact that she just barely kept her promise never to tell anyone what happened, and she wraps her arms around Ally and Normani’s necks and jumps to the beat of the bass. It’s hot and uncomfortable, but she feels light and almost happy. 

She also needs to pee.

“I need to pee,” she tells Ally and Normani over the music, but she’s pretty sure only Ally hears her because she’s the one that nods and laces their fingers together so they won’t lose each other on their way to the bathroom.

“We’re going to pee,” Ally says, before Lauren pulls her off the dance floor and towards where she thinks the bathroom is.

It takes them a few minutes to find it, and they end up going upstairs because the one downstairs is occupied, but when they finally find the right door, that one is locked as well. 

“Great,” Lauren sighs, leaning her back against the door to steady herself. She doesn’t feel as uncoordinated anymore, but in the back of her mind she knows she’s still pretty drunk. Everything is still kind of blurred around the edges, and she’s hyper aware of Ally standing next to her with a patient smile on her face.

“I’m drunk,” Lauren says, her lips curling up in a dopey smile.

Ally turns to face her, and there’s a certain look in her eyes that Lauren would’ve been better at reading if she weren’t trying not to trip while standing still.

“I know,” Ally says, furrowing her brow a little. “Are you okay? You seemed pretty upset earlier, and I didn’t want to butt in and stuff, but you know how I am. I get worried.”

Lauren shrugs, leaning her head against the wall. “I know. You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be okay, I think.”

“I care about you, of course I get worried sometimes.” Ally gives her a soft smile, one that makes Lauren’s heart hammer against her chest.

She missed Ally. Like, a lot. There’s always an empty spot at their lunch table now, and even Camila can’t fill it. Especially not Camila. They’re too different. Camila is cold stares and Lauren’s chest feeling like it will explode every time they lock eyes or accidentally brush hands. Ally is warm smiles and the feeling of being loved and cared about.

Lauren blinks. Her head feels hazy and her chest feels tight. Ally is almost just as tall as Lauren with these heels on. It would be really easy to just—

Lauren closes her eyes and steps forward, pressing her lips against Ally’s. She feels Ally gasp into her mouth, and for a moment nothing happens. Ally’s lips are soft and sweet, and Lauren tries to deepen the kiss, but Ally turns her head before Lauren can put her hand on the back of Ally’s neck.

“Lo,” Ally says, taking a step back. Lauren tries to follow her, but Ally puts her hand on Lauren’s arm. “I think this is a bad idea.”

Lauren swallows. She can still feel the ghost of Ally’s lips on her own still taste a little bit of the sweetness of the kiss. She wants to kiss her again, just to  _feel_  something.

“Why?” she asks, forcing herself to look into Ally’s eyes instead of at her mouth. “Don’t you want to kiss me?”

Ally shakes her head. “It’s not about what I want. But you’re drunk, and you’re just projecting your feelings for someone else onto me. I’m not really the person you want to be kissing right now.”

“What if you are?”

Ally lets out a soft breath. “I’d be flattered, but Lo, we both know I’m not. I don’t know what’s going on or why you feel like you want to kiss me, but you’re drunk and I don’t want you to do something that you’ll regret when you wake up tomorrow.” 

And Lauren knows, deep down, that Ally’s right. She can’t kiss Ally without thinking about Camila, and she doesn’t want to use Ally like that. Ally’s nice and pretty, but she doesn’t make Lauren’s stomach flip and she doesn’t make her head spin. That’s Camila. It’s still Camila.

“I’m sorry,” Lauren mumbles. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

Ally gives her a sad smile, rubbing her arm reassuringly. “It’s okay, Lo. I still love you.”

“I’m—” Lauren’s cut off by something burning in her throat, and her eyes widen. She turns to the door, crossing the hallway to bang on it and tell whoever’s on it to hurry, but she doesn’t have to. Before she’s even halfway, the door unlocks and a girl rushes past them back to the party.

Lauren doesn’t waste any time explaining anything to Ally. She clasps her hand over her mouth and drops to her knees in front of the toilet, only just in time for her entire stomach content to make its way back up again.

She barely registers Ally sitting down next to her to hold back her hair while she throws up, her eyes tearing up from the acid burning in her throat.

She throws up until there’s nothing left to throw up, and when it’s done she’s not sure whether the tears streaming down her face are caused by alcohol or Camila. She hates feeling like this, sad and pathetic, crying into the toilet because of a girl. She hates that Ally is still next to her, stroking her hand up and down her back, like Lauren didn’t just fuck up majorly.

“I’m sorry,” she says, again. Tonight’s not going the way she planned. Not at all. Her head hurts and her throat is burning and she’s pretty sure her tears have washed away all the makeup she spent so much time on. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Ally says. She gets up from the floor and rummages through the cabinets until she finds a wash cloth. She holds it under the faucet, and when she comes back, she wipes Lauren’s face. With a soft smile, she tucks a strand of hair behind Lauren’s ear. “We all have bad days sometimes.”

Lauren clenches her jaw and averts her eyes. “I’ve been having a lot of bad days lately.”

It’s quiet for a few moments, and Lauren looks up to see whether Ally has fallen asleep, but she’s met with dark eyes and a sad smile. Ally’s hand is still on Lauren’s back, and Lauren lets herself melt into Ally’s chest.

They sit like that for a while, and Lauren almost forgets her broken heart, but then Ally moves. “Lo?”

“Hm?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Lauren sighs. “Not really.”

“Okay.” A pause. “You’ll let me know if you do want to talk about it, right? It’s bad to bottle things up when they upset you.”

“I know. I just—you know how sometimes when you have to pee but you can’t because there’s no toilet nearby and when you finally do get to a toilet and you expect you’re going to pee really loudly but it only comes out like a tiny stream? I think I’ve been bottling up things so long it can’t come out like a big stream anymore.”

There’s another moment of silence, and then Ally starts laughing. At first Lauren is offended, but there’s something about Ally’s laugh that makes her smile a little, too.

 

 

Ally tells her she’s going to bring her home after Lauren’s done peeing. Lauren’s head is still swimming a little, and she has to steady herself at least four times on the way back downstairs, where the party is still going strong.

They find Normani in the kitchen with Keana and Ashley, and a bunch of other people. They’re playing a game Lauren sort of wants to join, but then she’s reminded of Ally and how she’s going home soon, and sleep sounds a lot better than cheap beer right now.

“We’re leaving,” Lauren says, hugging Normani. She squeezes her tight and closes her eyes for a moment, smiling as Normani hugs her back just as tightly.

“Call me when you wake up tomorrow, okay?” Normani whispers in her ear, and Lauren nods. 

They break apart and while Ally hugs Normani, Lauren says goodbye to Keana and Ashley. She’s a little sad she didn’t see them a lot tonight, but at least she got to spend a lot of time with Ally. And considering the fact that she never sees Ally but gets to see Keana and Ashley every day, she’s pretty content with that.

Ally’s car is around the corner. They walk in silence, and Lauren breathes in the fresh Miami air. It clears her head a little, though not enough not to nearly trip over thin air twice before they reach the car.

“Tell me if you feel sick again, okay?” Ally says, holding open the door to the passenger’s seat. 

Lauren nods and climbs in. Ally’s car smells like Ally, somehow. It’s comforting. 

She watches as Ally starts the car and checks all the mirrors before driving off. She watches as Ally is barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel, and smiles when Ally has to physically stand up a little when they reach a difficult crossroad. She watches Ally, and she thinks about how easy it would be to fall in love with her instead.

But she can’t control who she falls in love with. If she could, she would really reconsider falling in love with Camila.

Maybe.

She loves Camila too much. Even after everything Camila put her through, she still loves her. And it’s horrible and makes her want to cry her eyes out and get drunk at lame parties, but sometimes she almost forgets about how much it hurts and loving her is almost a good feeling.

Other than Lauren giving directions to Ally, it’s a quiet ride. Ally’s not a bad driver, and Lauren doesn’t end up getting sick again.

At one point she catches Ally looking at her when they’re waiting for a red light, and she smiles and makes a thumbs up to show that she’s still doing okay. Ally smiles back, and then the light turns green. 

When they arrive at Lauren’s house, Lauren almost forgets it’s way past midnight and everyone’s already in bed. She stumbles a few feet behind Ally, who has her keys so they won’t wake anyone up because Lauren’s fumbling too much.

“Shh,” Ally says, right before they walk inside. “Where is your room?”

“Upstairs,” Lauren whispers back. She points at the staircase and slowly starts climbing up, Ally right behind her in case she trips and falls. 

It’s not that Lauren’s too drunk to walk in a straight line, it’s just that she’s never been drunk before and this new hazy state of consciousness is all new to her.

They make it upstairs and into the bathroom, where Ally sits down on the edge of the tub, and Lauren starts wiping off the remains of her makeup. It’s not much, and without it she looks absolutely terrible after tonight, but sleeping with makeup on is never a good idea.

“Don’t forget to drink water,” Ally says, after Lauren finishes brushing her teeth. 

Lauren gives her a toothy smile and swallows a few mouthfuls of water. “Anything else?”

“Just pajamas, I guess.” Ally stands up, and takes off her heels so they won’t make a sound while they cross the hallway. She’s a lot shorter now, and Lauren has to actually look down to see Ally’s face.

“You’re tiny,” she whispers as they leave the bathroom and go into Lauren’s room. It’s one big mess, but Lauren’s still too drunk to care. And besides, it’s Ally. Ally won’t care if it’s messy. She’s too nice.

“You’re not that tall either,” Ally whispers back. Her eyes glance over the room, and she sits down on the desk chair while Lauren tries to find her pajamas in her bed.

“Uh, do you mind if I, uh—” She gestures at herself and the pajamas. “You know?”

Ally cracks a soft smile. “Of course not.” She pulls out her phone and starts reading something on the screen, as if to say  _Don’t worry, I’m not watching_. The contrast with Camila is so strong it sort of hurts.

Lauren quickly changes out of her party outfit and into her pajamas, sliding under her covers. When she turns to look at Ally, she smiles. “I’m done, you can look now.”

Ally’s eyes flicker back up to Lauren’s face, and she puts her phone away. “Want me to stay until you fall asleep or do you think you’ll be okay on your own?”

Lauren blinks, shrugging. “Whatever you want. I don’t mind if you, like, stay the night or something, but I don’t want to scare my parents into thinking I brought someone home when they think I’m sleeping over at Normani’s place tonight.”

“I’ll stay until you fall asleep, okay? Just in case.” Ally straightens her dress and lifts the covers of Lauren’s bed. She strokes a strand of hair out of Lauren’s face and smiles. “I missed you a lot.”

“I missed you, too. We really need to hang out more.” Lauren mumbles, scooting a little closer to Ally. She presses her face into Ally’s shoulder, and closes her eyes. “I’m really sorry I kissed you. I’m glad you’re not mad.”

Ally lets out a soft sigh, still stroking Lauren’s hair. “Of course I’m not mad. I just want you to be okay.”

“I will be, I think.” Lauren breathes in Ally’s perfume and wraps her arm around her to ground herself. To not break her own heart with her own thoughts again. “Thanks for taking care of me.”

“Of course, Lo.”

Lauren looks up through half closed eyes, nuzzling her face into Ally’s dress. It’s nice, being held and looked after by someone who actually cares about you.

“I love you,” she whispers as she feels herself falling asleep. It’s quiet for another while, and then Ally presses a soft kiss against Lauren’s hair. It’s so soft she almost doesn’t feel it. It’s so soft she can’t remember Camila ever being this gentle.

She falls asleep before she hears Ally’s reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the long wait yall, life got in the way. thanks for the great response to the previous chapters, please let us hear your thoughts and feelings about this one as well, it means so much.


	4. Brad

She’s been avoiding Camila like the plague lately, which is likely why she doesn’t find out sooner. In fact, it takes Dinah asking Camila if she’s still going out with Austin that night for Lauren to realize something is going on. 

“Who’s Austin?” Keana asks from beside Lauren, who’s only half listening to the conversation as she twirls her spoon in her yogurt distractedly.

Camila doesn’t get the chance to reply before Dinah does, a teasing tilt to her voice. “He’s Chancho’s  _boyfriend.”_

Lauren’s head snaps up, and she nearly spills her yogurt all over her tray as she looks over to the farthest corner of the table, where Camila is sat with a grumpy expression as Dinah elbows her on the side.

Lauren can feel Normani’s glance her way, but she’s too busy noticing the blush starting to spread across Camila’s cheeks at Dinah’s teasing to pay attention toher. 

Camila doesn’t even try to deny it despite how much Dinah teases her and shares the details with the table. If that wasn’t confirmation enough that Dinah was telling the truth, the next few days certainly prove to be.

As it turns out, Lauren actually knows Austin, even though they hardly share any classes. Camila doesn’t tell her, but Lauren finds out from Normani that Camila had met Austin through the school’s band.

She also learns that Austin has a knack for accompanying Camila to her classes, getting her bag for her and giving her dopey smiles as he wraps his arm around her. Not that she  _wants_  to know, but for some reasonshe can’t seem to stop bumping into them every time she’s switching classes.

It makes herfeel numb, at first. Other than the shock of finding out at their lunch table, she almost thinks she’s fine with it. She’d been shocked, because somehow it’d slipped her mind that of course Camila wouldn’t tell her—she’s not Camila’s person anymore; she’s not the one Camila tells her secrets to or shares her crushes with. She’d been shocked, because she’d forgotten Camila could fall for someone that wasn’t her—that she didn’t have a monopoly on Camila’s heart, even though Camila has one on hers.

After that first moment, though, she carries on with her days, resolutely ignoring every attempt from her friends to talk to her about the topic. She averts her eyes when she sees Camila, and tries to ignore how she now has to look away from Camila’s  _boyfriend_ , too.

The bitterness she feels whenshe thinks of that word should be enough of a clue about how unpleasant it would be to actually be faced with him.

And yet, when she sees Camila dragging him to their table to eat lunch with them, Lauren is met with a stronger desire to punch him than she’s ever felt. It’s even worse than when she sees Camila and Dinah acting like nothing’s wrong, like nothing’s ever happened. 

It feels like he’s encroaching on her space.  _Their_ space—Lauren’s and her friends. He’s not her friend. He’s just the guy Camila is smiling at when he wraps and arm around her waist to whisper something close to her ear. The red hot anger that curls low in Lauren’s gut at the sight makes her food go bitter.

She stabs at her potatoes with more force than necessary, gritting her teeth and pressing her lips together to keep herself from saying anything. Keana fidgets uncomfortably next to her, and Normani throws Lauren a pointed look when she can’t help scoffing loudly when Camila laughs at whatever joke Austin just told.

She doesn’t even manage to laugh when Ashley leans into her side when they’re discarding their tray and asks her if Lauren wants her to stab him to spare her the trouble, too busy burning holes on his back with fuming eyes.

It’s when they’re all parting ways after discarding their trays that Lauren is first met with the sight of someone else kissing Camila—the sight of  _him_  kissing Camila. She’s met with the sight of Camila not pulling away and smiling genuinely up at him with a spark in her eyes that Lauren remembers from when Camila was six years old and just understanding why people kiss each other.

Lauren’s completely, bitterly, and miserably jealous, and she fucking hates it.

 

“Brad is nice,” Lauren says idly as she looks over at where Brad Simpson is laughing with his friends a few desks over. She’s in study hall with Normani and Keana, and she has long abandoned her notes in favor of studying the boy from afar.

“Who?” Keana asks, curiously looking up from where she’d been revising her Chemistry work. “Oh, Brad.”

“Do you think he’s cute?” Lauren asks, watching as one of his buddies jokingly pushes his shoulder.

She hasn’t told anyone yet, but when she was waiting for Ashley so they could head to practice yesterday, Brad came up to her as she waited and asked her out.

Keana glances over at Brad again before glancing at Normani, who’s looking up from pretending not to use her phone to look over at Brad too. 

“I guess?” Keana says with a shrug, while Normani just raises her eyebrows. ”He’s in a band, I think. I mean, an actual band, not school band. He played at that last party the seniors threw.”

Lauren hums, biting the tip of her pen as she takes in this new piece of information. It’s then that Brad turns on his chair, causing their eyes to meet, and he sends her a boyish grin before Lauren breaks their gaze with a bite to her lip.

She thinks back to how he asked her out yesterday, and she feels like an idiot. She actually didn’t even realize he was asking her out at first—she’d thought he was just making conversation, talking about this new movie that was coming out that he was thinking of watching, so she replied honestly, saying she was in fact interested in watching it.

She only realized what was happening when he shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to confirm if she wanted to go see it with him.

She didn’t know what to do, flustered all of a sudden under his attention, so she said she had to check with her parents, which is possibly the most uncool thing she could say, but he’d grinned at her and said she could text him if she wanted.

So now she has his number in her phone contacts, and maybe she shouldn’t be considering it. But he’s nice to her and he asked her out, so he probably likes her. He also wants to be seen in public with her, something Camila would never do. 

And maybe, there is a part of Lauren that wants Camila to see her with someone else, too, and make Camila realize that maybe Lauren is not going to wait forever.

 

Brad really  _is_  nice. 

He dresses up for their date, sort of. His hair looks shiny and combed, and the collar on his shirt is popped open. Lauren can see the silver necklace he’s wearing, and he pulls it up for her to see when he notices her looking. 

“I’ve always worn this one,” he says, holding the cross penchant he wears on a silver chain, before showing her the other penchant. “This one I got recently though.”

Lauren steps closer as they wait in line for their tickets, running her fingers lightly over the detailed silver wing. “Does it mean anything specific?”

“I got it with my bandmates,” he says, and Lauren doesn’t miss the way his eyes trail over her face before she lets go of his necklace. “Just a little trinket to remind me of what the music means, you know?”

For a moment Lauren thinks he’s messing with her, but his smile is genuine. “So music’s your... wings?”

He shrugs, but nods, and Lauren doesn’t have to pretend to smile at that.

She’d feared this whole date thing would turn out being awkward, honestly. That Brad would try too hard, and that things would be stiff and weird, but he is calm and nice.

Like, he  _does_  try. He offers to pay for her ticket, but doesn’t put up a fight when she says it’s fine and pays for it herself, and he rests his hand on her back as they head to their seats, but removes it once they’re seated.

She can feel him glancing at her through the movie, but she’s honestly too nervous to engage with him. She’s never been on a date. She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do, and she feels she might be coming off as rude by just focusing on the movie. Butshe wasn’t lying when she said she was interested in watching it.

Luckily Brad seems a lot more confident. He leans closer to quietly comment on how great the lead actor’s hair is, and afterwards he doesn’t lean back as far as before. He’s so close that Lauren’s skin feels like it has electricity running through it, and if she focuses on him more than on the movie, she can almost hear his steady breathing by her ear.

She glances at him through her eyelashes. His eyes are focused on the screen, and there’s a somewhat amused grin on his lips. He’s cute. Most girls at school think he’s attractive, and Lauren can’t deny that there’s something especially charming about the way he carries himself. There’s a certain air of confidence around him that she isn’t used to.

Just when she’s about to look away, he turns his face to look back at her, a smile spreading across his lips. He lifts his arm, hovering it above Lauren’s shoulders until she nods, then pulls her closer, pushing up the arm rest in between them so she can lean against him while they watch the movie.

It’s actually pretty comfortable. Brad is softer than he looks, and he smells really good, too.

Lauren relaxes against his chest, feels his breath in her hair. It’s soothing, and she thinks she could probably get used to this.

 

They go for ice cream after the movie. Brad’s arm is still wrapped around Lauren’s shoulders while they walk down the street with ice cream cones, discussing the movie and their favorite ice cream flavors.

It’s so casual Lauren almost forgets it’s a date, but every now and then Brad tightens his grip on her shoulders and grins at her, and she feels warm inside. He’s obviously showing her off, but it’s with such ease and a hint of pride that she has trouble keeping the smile off her face. It’s everything she isn’t used to, and everything she ever wanted.

They walk around the block, and Lauren sort of feels like they might be a couple. She’s pretty sure it looks like they are to other people. But it’s only the first date, and she doesn’t have a lot of experience yet,so she isn’t too sure about what is okay and what isn’t.

When they round the corner and their ice cream cones are gone,however, Brad’s eyes flicker down to her lips. For a moment she panics, because she’s never kissed a boy before and she hasn’t kissed anyone in a while, but the moment he leans down and actually kisses her, she relaxes.

Brad kisses her unexpectedly soft, but his lips feel different from what she’s used to. She half expects them to taste like lipgloss, but they taste like ice cream and it’s almost the same. His hand is large and strong when he pulls her in by the low of her back, his body solid against hers, and she has to stand on her toes to keep kissing him back.

It’s also rougher and filled with a little more lust, but it’s not worse.

His hands are still on her back, and other than pulling her in tighter it’s pretty much all he uses them for. He slips his tongue into Lauren’s mouth, and she actually  _smiles_ , nervous butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

Kissing Brad is nice. It’s different, but it’s still nice. He responds to what she does, and he doesn’t pull away. And he kissed her first, which she’s still not sure actually happened. 

Lauren pulls back when she starts running out of breath, and when she opens her eyes, Brad’s are still closed. His lips are still slightly parted as they curl up into a smile—a  _real_  genuine one. 

Lauren can’t help but smile back. She wants to say something, but her mind is blank. Her lips are still tingling from kissing him, and there’s a strange flutter in her chest she hasn’t felt in a really long time.

Brad is still staring at her with an almost admiring look in his eyes, and Lauren decides she really likes being liked back.

 

He drops her off at her house later. He’s a year older than her, so he already has his license, and while he’s not the most careful driver, it’s still pretty cool.

“I had fun tonight,” Lauren says, looking at him from the passenger’s seat.

He smiles. “Me too. Do you think we can do it again any time soon? The part where I take you out on a date, I mean. We can do something else than see a movie and eat ice cream. Do you like Italian food?”

“You mean, like, pizza?”

“Or pasta, whatever you prefer.”

Lauren lets out a soft laugh. “Yeah, I like both.”

“Sweet. Does that mean yes?” He looks at her with an eager look in his eyes and an easy grin on his lips.

“I guess,” Lauren says, her voice shaking a little, because he likes her enough to ask her out on a second date before the first one is evenfully ended. He actually wants to see her again, outside of school.

“I’m already looking forward to it.” Brad grin turns into a genuine smile, and he leans over the console of the car. It’s a bit of an awkward position, but Lauren’s eyes still flutter closed when he pecks her lips, and she almost leans back in when he pulls away.

“I think I can see your dad through the window,” he says, nodding his head at the house. “I’ll see you on Monday, alright?”

“Alright,” Lauren smiles. “And thank you for tonight.”

He squeezes her hand. “My pleasure.”

She takes a deep breath as she opens the car door and gets out. She can feel Brad looking at her as she walks to the front door, but she forces herself not to turn around until she’s about to step into the house.

He’s still leaning over the arm rest, chewing his bottom lip. She gives him an awkward wave, and he waves back with a smile. 

Her parents are waiting for her in the living room, and they look at her expectantly when she walks in. She’s not in the mood to really talk about her night just yet, wanting to savor the moment for a little while longer. So she tells them the date and Brad were both really nice, and dashes up the stairs, into her bedroom.

Her heart is beating against her chest as she plops down on her bed with a bright smile. She’s not sure what she’s feeling right now, but it’s new and exciting and she thinks that maybe this could really work.

After texting Normani about how much of a gentleman Brad is—and how they already had their first kiss—shegets up to change into her pajamas.

Something catches her eye from outside her window, and she turns her gaze to where Camila’s bedroom window is almost by instinct. Thecurtains are closed, but the lights are on, and Lauren can see a shadow that is unmistakably Camila moving around.

It makes her stop, her pajama top still halfway off her torso, and stare. Not because she’s trying to picture what Camila is doing, but because she realizes that this is the first time Camila has crossed her mind tonight.

 

They go on more dates. Two, to be exact. One to an Italian restaurant where they both end up eating pizza, and one to the beach that ends with them making out in the sand.

Lauren is still getting used to showing public displays of affection, and she’s still getting used to being with Brad.

She can’t read him like she’s used to reading the people around her—be it her friends, or Camila—and sometimes he surprises her with a joke or a comment she didn’t expect. But he’s nice, and he’s cute, and he treats her really well. He doesn’t push for her to take her clothes off the way she’s heard some friends talking about their boyfriends, nor does he make her promise never to tell anyone about the two of them. He’s so different, but he’s a good different.

She’s pretty sure Normani doesn’t approve, because every time Lauren mentions him—he’s her boyfriend now, they made it official after he brought her home after the third date—she lets out a sigh and shakes her head. But Lauren doesn’t really care, or she tries not to, anyway. 

Lauren needs Brad, to distract her from Camila. Whenever Lauren’s with him, she doesn’t think about Camila as much, and when she does it doesn’t make her chest tighten like she’s having a heart attack.

It’s not better, just different.

 

Three weeks after they start dating, Lauren drags him to their lunch table. She can feel Normani’s disapproving looks on her, and Keana and Ashley’s unsure smiles. She also feels Camila’s burning stare, and when she meets her eyes, she finds confusion and something distant written all over her face.

“Hi guys,” Lauren says, pulling Brad into the seat next to her. “This is Brad. Brad, these are my friends. Normani, Keana, and Ashley, and Dinah, and Camila.”

They wave at each other, and Keana says, “We have some classes together, don’t we?”

Brad nods and, with his arm wrapped loosely around Lauren’s waist, starts making small talk with Keana, Ashley, and Dinah.

Normani’s pushing her food around on her plate instead of participating, and Camila’s still staring at Lauren like she grew a second head, but Lauren tries to ignore them the best she can. She doesn’t have to explain why she is bringing her  _boyfriend_  to lunch with her friends—she ate lunch with his friends a few days ago and it was fine.

Lauren holds Brad’s hand under the table and eats lunch with the other, listening to everyone’s chatter and smiling back at Brad every time he meets her gaze until Camila suddenly leaps out of her seat and yelps out something that sounds a lot like, “Baby!”

Lauren’s head snaps up just in time to see Camila throwing her arms around Austin and pulling him towards their table.

There’s a subtle twist in Lauren’s gut, and she subconsciously tightens her grip on the fork she’s holding—and Brad’s hand. He squeezes back, kissing her cheek. She leans into him with a forced smile **,** her eyes on Camila and Austin as theysit down on the opposite side of the table.

Lauren’s eyes pierce into Camila’s for a moment, and the tension between them feels so thick it’s almost physical. 

But Austin and Brad obviously know each other, because they fist bump over the table and start talking almost instantly. Lauren wonders if they really don’t see the glaring that’s happening between their girlfriends—she’s pretty sure even  _Dinah_ does **.**

Laurenlets go of Brad’s hand and wraps her arm around his waist instead so she can lean into him. She can see the hint of a smile on his lips as he pulls her closer, but other than thathe continues to talk about guitars to Austin. It’s not enough, Lauren decides. She didn’t bring him here so he could be buddies with Camila’s boyfriend, so she pushes her tray away and turns into him to run her hand through his curls.

He finally turns to look at her. “What’s up, babe?”

She shrugs. “Nothing, you just look really handsome today.”

“Yeah? You too.” He leans in and kisses her—on the mouth. Right in front of Camila and Austin. Lauren smirks and kisses him back a little more feverishly than necessary, pulling him closer by his shirt. 

Through half closed eyes, Lauren can see Camila abruptly turning to kiss Austin, and she instantly refocuses into her own kiss and slips her tongue into Brad’s mouth. He hesitates for a moment, because they’re in the middle of the cafeteria making out, but then moves his hand to the small of Lauren’s back and gives in to the temptation.

“Uh—” Keana says, but Ashley snickers, and Dinah whoops a little.

“Jeez, get a room,” Normani snaps sharply, and Lauren loses focus. She pulls back from the kiss, leaning her head on Brad’s shoulder, and fakes the brightest smile possible.

On the other side of the table, Austin and Camila cuddle up, too.

Lauren’s eyes drop to Camila’s hand resting on Austin’s chest, and her mouth curls in distaste for a moment. She knows she’s being ridiculous, but she can’t help herself when she blurts out, “Brad is in a band. He’s the lead singer.”

Camila’s eyes narrow, and her reply is instant. “Well Austin writes his own songs.”

“So does Brad,” Lauren throws back immediately.

“Oh god,” Keana mumbles under her breath, but Lauren pays no attention to her. She’s too busy glaring at Camila and her  _boyfriend_.

“His band is booked for a gig Thursday night, they’re really good,” Lauren continues, shooting a quasi-proud look at her boyfriend. He pats her shoulder, but his eyes are focused on Austin, who’s looking back with a hint of confusion.

“Austin is going to LA to pursue his singing career after high school,” Camila says, fire in her eyes. “I’m prettysure he’ll get a record deal really soon. He’s super talented.”

“Brad is—” Lauren starts, but she’s interrupted by the bell ringing to announce the end of lunch break.

Camila gets up immediately, quickly followed by Austin and Dinah, and she dashes out the cafeteria before Lauren even gets the chance to finish her sentence.

Brad waits for her to throw out her uneaten food, and when she meets him back at their table, he gives her a concerned frown. “Is everything alright? You were acting a little strange just now.”

Lauren suppresses a sigh and nods. “Yeah, just a weird day. Camila was being an ass.”

Brad studies her face for a moment, then cracks his usual easy grin. “Okay, I’m glad. And you’re right, she was being a bit rude today.”

Lauren tenses when he slings his arm over her shoulder. She knows it’s her own fault, but she can’t help being angry at Brad for actually agreeing.

 

Lauren turns sixteen on a Wednesday. Her entire team is at the party she throws, as are her friends, and Brad and his bandmates. Her parents promised to steer clear of the house for a while so they can have fun, so they took Lauren’s siblings for a night out, but not before settings some ground rules.

One of those rules was that there would be no alcohol at the party, which means Lauren only has an assortment of sodas and juice boxes to serve, but everyone seems to be having fun anyway. Normani took care of the music, so there’s nothing too depressing or anything without a good beat, and they moved the furniture aside to create a little dance floor—something the house party she went to a few weeks ago inspired.

Lauren is in the kitchen, catching up with Ally and keeping an eye on where Brad and his bandmates are setting up for an acoustic performance. 

She’s trying not to snort out the sip of soda she’d taken just before Ally finished telling her the story of a mishap she had at her campus cafeteria, clutching to Ally’s wrist as they laugh, when a soft “Hey,” comes from the doorway.

Lauren turns around, and her smile freezes when she sees Camila standing there. “Oh. Hi.”

Lauren had invited her, of course. Her heart still hammers against her chest every time she sees Camila, unable to completely forget all the awful things she said. Lauren’s not sure she’ll ever be able to forgive Camila, but they have the same group of friends and it’s expected of her to invite her to her birthday party, even if she didn’t feel completely at ease doing it. She half expected Camila not to show up, considering how she’d stared blankly back at her when Lauren invited her and Dinah, and yet here she is.

Lauren doesn’t remember letting Camila in, nor does she remember taking much notice of her during the party—too busy swept between Brad’s affections, catching up with Ally, and messing around with her friends and reacting to the gifts they’d brought. 

But someone did, because Camila is standing in the kitchen doorway, interrupting one of the few moments Lauren is able to get with Ally these days. 

She’s nervous. Lauren can tell by the way she bites her lip for a moment and fidgets on her feet, eyes flickering between Lauren and Ally as she keeps her hands behind her back.

Lauren blinks, slowly letting go of Ally’s wrist. She doesn’t really know what to do, but the memory of Ally’s lips when she wanted Camila’s is still fresh in her mind, and it feels awkward having the two of them in the same room.

Ally seems to feel it, too. “Uh,” she says, a forced smile on her lips. “I think I just saw Ash needing some help. See you in a bit?”

Lauren nods weakly, her eyes still trained on Camila while Ally slips past her back into the living room.

“Hey,” Camila repeats, stepping fully into the kitchen now, and Lauren really doesn’t know what to say, so she waits. “This is a cool party,” Camila adds, looking as uncomfortable as Lauren feels.

“Yeah, thanks,” Lauren mutters. She’s half tempted to ask Camila if she brought her  _boyfriend_  with her, but she doesn’t really want to know lest it ruins her mood. She’s determined to enjoy her day and not let Camila ruin it for her, which is why she squares her shoulders and looks back at Camila firmly, rather than letting her gaze wander.

“Right,” Camila says, and then she’s looking down at her feet, fidgeting again. “So anyway, I just wanted to...” She takes a deep breath, and then brings her hands from behind her back, shoving a small package towards Lauren. “Happy birthday.”

Lauren fumbles with the package in surprise, gripping it with her fingertips as Camila presses it into her hands, and she can’t help but notice how haphazardly it’s wrapped. “Did you wrap this yourself?” she asks, her lips quirking up into a smile despite herself, remembering all the times they’d wrap presents for Christmas together and how Camila always invariably sucked at it.

“Yeah, shut up,” Camila mutters, embarrassedly, and Lauren can’t help chuckling at the flush on her cheeks.

“Thank you,” Lauren says softly, more out of habit than anything else as she runs her fingers lightly over the package. She wasn’t expecting any of this—not Camila coming to talk to her, not Camila giving her a present, and not Camila looking at her expectantly as she stalls.

“You can open it,” Camila adds, scratching at her own cheek for a second. “It’s just something I thought you’d like. I saw it a while back and it reminded me of—um. I mean, it made me think of you, so. I hope you like it.”

Something in Lauren’s chest tickles at the soft way Camila admits to thinking of her, and she can’t hold her curiosity back anymore. She tears the wrapping paper quickly, and is met with a plain box. 

She glances at Camila as she fingers the box open, noticing how Camila seems to be holding her breath, and when she looks down she’s met with a small, circular metal box. She pulls it out of the package, not really getting what it’s supposed to be at first—it has plenty of small delicate engravings around its edges, and when she flips it upside down, there’s a Walt Disney trademark engraved.

She pushes a small button near the top, and the metal lid opens. The inside is velvet red, and she finds what takes her a moment to recognize as the hummingbird from Pocahontas perched at the center—it looks like it’s made of silver, but she’s sure it can’t be because Camila would not have the money to buy her something made of  _silver_. 

“You’re supposed to...” Camila trails off, reaching out, and their fingers brush just as Lauren grips the small metal handle sticking out from the side. “Yeah, that.”

Lauren knows what this is. It’s a music box, and she spins the small handle with her fingertips slowly, holding the box carefully as she hears the cogs inside turning and the cord inside going tight. When she releases her grip on the handle, the hummingbird—Flit, she remembers distantly—starts twirling slowly in place, and a familiar song starts coming from the box, in the soft twingy metallic sounds Lauren associates with these things.

Her throat seems to close up on her as she stares fixedly at the item and hears the melody of  _Colors of the Wind_  ring out, and she’s overcome with nostalgia. 

She remembers watching Pocahontas with Camila over and over again, and having to rewind the VHS tape every time because Camila would never do it after they finished watching and fell asleep to the soothing empty blue from the TV.

She remembers singing this song in Camila’s living room with her, swirling around the couch with their arms raised, pretending they were leaves in the wind as they spun around, and she remembers Camila insisting that Lauren’s the one who should sing it because it sounded so pretty when she did.

She remembers  _Camila_ , and her heart feels like it’s expanding in her chest as she draws in a breath. She’s still staring down at the soothing twirling of the hummingbird as the song plays, and her vision gets blurry as her eyes start filling with tears, because she knows Camila remembers, too.

When Lauren finally raises her gaze to look at her, she finds her looking right back at her with a soft smile that steals whatever breath Lauren thought she had left in her. She has to blink furiously to clear her vision then, her tears rolling down her cheeks as she notices Camila’s eyes start filling up too.

“Camz,” she breathes, because she doesn’t know what else she could possibly say.

She surges forward, holding the music box tightly in one hand as she wraps her arms around Camila to hug her. She doesn’t care in this moment if she’s being too forward. She doesn’t care if Camila wanted this moment to not be a big deal, and she doesn’t care if Camila pulls back. She just needs to hold her, even if just for a second.

Camila doesn’t pull back, though. Lauren can feel the breath she lets out just before she wraps her arms around Lauren’s waist and hugs her back, and Lauren feels like she’s in a haze as their bodies press together and she presses her face to Camila’s shoulder.

She tries to regain control of her breathing, inhaling deeply into Camila’s shoulder, but Camila’s hands run up her back softly, and all Lauren can do is tighten her grip around her shoulders and revel in the familiarity of having Camila in her arms.

“Happy birthday, Lo,” Camila whispers, her voice hoarse by Lauren’s ear, and it’s such a good moment that Lauren isn’t even disappointed when Camila doesn’t follow it up with _I love you_. 

 

Later that night, when the party’s over and everyone has left, Lauren finds herself gasping into Brad’s mouth with her back pressed against her closed bedroom door, his fingers grazing at the exposed skin of her stomach and her shirt trampled under her feet.

Her thigh is between Brad’s as he trails his hands up her torso with low whispers of her name, kissing a trail down her neck to her collar bone. She can feel his pants straining against her skin, and his kisses are heated against her skin, but he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.

“Did you have fun today?” he asks between kisses, looking into her eyes just long enough for her to nod.

“Thank you for the song,” she says. “No one’s ever written me a song before.”

He grins and presses his forehead against hers. “I really like you, Lauren.”

His words send shivers down her spine and make her stomach tumble, because it’s such a stark contrast to Camila’s silence that all she can do is kiss the breath out of him, running her hands through his hair and pressing in tight against him.

He seems content with that, and his hand travels to the small of her back as he flips them around and starts to gently push her towards her bed. 

Her breath hitches in her throat when the back of her knees hit the frame and she scatters backwards on the mattress, watching as he takes off his shirt before joining her on the bed.

Her body is a mess of nerves as she clutches to his shoulder and stares up at the ceiling, but her heart jumps and races at his gentle touches and the tender murmurs he presses against her skin. She doesn’t want to ask him to stop, so she doesn’t.

He’s warm and gentle and everything she tells herself she wants, everything she probably  _should_ want, and she lets herself be swept away in the blur of new touches and sensations, her ears ringing with the sound of their mixed breaths and the stuttered moans she finds leaving her lips. 

She doesn’t know what she expected, but none of it is particularly painful or really all that earth shattering, but her back arches and her toes curl when he takes care of her like a gentleman, and she almost forgets how close she was to blurting out Camila’s name when he collapses on top of her afterwards and presses a kiss to her neck.

 

She sort of wants him to stay the night, but her parents are going to be home any second now and tonight has already been such an emotional rollercoaster that she’s not sure she can deal with their questions right now. 

He seems to understand, kissing her after every piece of clothing they put back on. His smile is sweet and his eyes are dark and Lauren thinks it might be butterflies when her heart leaps in her chest every time his lips touch hers.

They hold hands on the way back downstairs, and they both linger in the doorway, not wanting to say goodbye just yet. Lauren’s arms are wrapped around his neck and she smiles into his kisses. He’s much gentler now, a lot less rushed, like he doesn’t think he’s going to lose her any time soon. 

“My parents are going to be home soon,” she mumbles against his lips.

“I don’t want to leave,” he says, his eyes still closed.

She smiles. “I don’t want you to leave. But—”

“I know.” He kisses her again, his fingertips touching her jaw. “I—I’ll see you soon.”

“Text me when you get home.” She runs her hand through her hair to make it appear less messy. “Don’t text and drive.”

He shoots her another smile before walking down to his car and getting in. She laughs when he makes a point of dramatically taking out his phone and throwing it in the backseat, watching as he starts the engine and drives off with one last wave through the rolled down window.

 

When Normani stops by her house to help clean up the next day, Lauren tries to keep quiet about it. But it’s such a big milestone and she doesn’t  _regret_  it, so she sort of blurts it out the moment she opens the front door.

“I slept with Brad.”

Unfortunately it doesn’t have the effect she’d hoped. Normani’s smile is replaced by a frown, and she studies Lauren’s face as she walks past her into the hallway.

“What?” Lauren asks. “Is everything okay?”

Normani shrugs. “You tell me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lauren closes the door behind Normani and leads her to the kitchen to grab drinks for them both, and maybe something to eat.

“I don’t know, Lauren.” Normani leans against the kitchen counter while Lauren fills two glasses with soda and grabs a bag of chips from one of the cabinets. “A few months ago you were crying to me about,” she lowers her voice, “ _Camila_ , and now you’re suddenly all over Bradley Simpson?”

Lauren clenches her jaw. She throws the bag of chips towards Normani and grabs both glasses to take them upstairs to her bedroom. Her parents already left for work, but Taylor is still asleep and she doesn’t know whether Chris is anywhere in the house, and she doesn’t feel like having to watch her words.

They’re silent while they walk up the stairs to Lauren’s room, but once they settle down—cross legged on Lauren’s bed with the bag of chips open between them—Lauren sighs. 

“I don’t see why I can’t date Brad. He’s nice and he really likes me.” 

“I thought you were, like, gay. Or something.” Normani doesn’t look up when she says that, and Lauren can’t deny she feels a twitch in her gut. It’s still hard to hear, especially from someone she kept so long keeping it from.

“Or something,” she repeats. “I don’t know what I am, and I don’t see what’s wrong with trying to figure that out. At least Brad doesn’t look like he wants to disappear every time he sees me.  _He_  asked  _me_  out.  _He_  kissed me first. In public.”

“Yeah, but he’s a teenage boy. You know how guys are,”Normani says. “I guess I just don’t want you getting hurt again. Since, you know. You deserve to be happy.”

Lauren swallows, resisting the urge to look at the window facing Camila’s bedroom. Now that the high from last night died down, she’s starting to feel an ache in her chest again, but she keeps telling herself it’s because today is dull in comparison to the excitement of yesterday.

“Maybe I can be happy with Brad,” she says, unsure if it sounds as convincing as she wants it to be.

Normani doesn’t say anything for a while. She picks at the potato chips and eventually eats a few. Her eyes are dark and thoughtful, and Lauren doesn’t like the way they seem to be able to read her mind sometimes, especially now that Normani  _knows_.

It’s not like she regrets telling her—maybe the circumstances could’ve been better, but at least she knows she’s accepted and she also has someone to vent to who’s known her as long as she’s known herself—but it does make it harder to hide how she’s feeling. Normani seems to overanalyze everything Lauren does now. 

Like, “Are you dating him because he’s a guy?”

“What? No!” Lauren says, almost immediately. Her gears are turning, and she’s putting up her walls. She hates being vulnerable, and Normani asking confronting questions is making her feel exactly that. “Why can’t you just accept that I like someone who isn’t—you know?”

Normani almost visibly rolls her eyes. “Well, first of all, you still haven’t ever said the word  _gay_  or  _lesbian_  or even  _bisexual_ , and you look like you’re going to have a panic attack every time someone mentions Camila around you.”

“That’s—” Lauren starts, but she can’t bring herself to finish the sentence because it’s true, and they both know it.

“Second of all, you only wanted to date someone after you found out Camila was dating Austin. I’m sure Brad is nice and all, but you can do better than that, and you know it.”

Lauren stares at Normani, her heart beating against her chest. She feels like she’s going to either cry or throw up, and the humming anxiety in her stomach is kicking up all her defense mechanisms. “Just because I said some things while I was drunk doesn’t mean you know everything about me, Mani. People are more complex than that, and I have every right to try something new every now and then. If you don’t want me to date Brad it means you don’t want me to at least try and be happy, because the alternative is going back to crying my eyes out every night because the girl I’ve been in love with since we were fucking six years old is too much in denial to even be near me. But if that’s the version of me you prefer I can totally do that.”

Normani’s eyes widen. “You were  _six_?” 

“This isn’t about that,” Lauren exclaims, slipping off the bed. She catches sight of Camila’s empty window, and it only fuels her anger. “Brad and I aren’t about Camila, just like she and Austin aren’t about me. I’m done trying to read into things only to have my heart broken all over again. I’m just done. I’m fucking done.”

Her knees buckle, and Normani jumps up just in time to catch her before she crumbles to the ground.

Lauren isn’t sure when she started crying, but when she buries her face in Normani’s shoulder, there are tears streaming down her face, and her breath is coming out in sobs. 

Normani just holds her, pulls her closer with every sob. “It’s okay, Lo. You’re gonna be fine.”

Lauren tries to deepen her breath to calm down, but her lungs are burning and she feels like she’s going to die from how much it suddenly  _hurts_.

Brad is nice and he obviously likes her, but he can’t fill the Camila-shaped hole in Lauren’s heart.

“I’m just—so—” Lauren hiccups into Normani’s hair. “I don’t understand why I can’t just—move on. We haven’t really talked for years, and she can barely look at me, but I still— _fuck_.”

Normani rubs Lauren’s back and she’s shaking a little. “I don’t know, Lo. Feelings are really fucked up sometimes.”

Lauren hasn’t let herself break down over Camila in a long time, not really, and now that she started, she can’t seem to stop. Every tear she sheds and every burning breath she takes—it’s all been inside of her for years. But the cork is popped, and everything she kept bottled up is flowing out all at once.

She cries until there are no tears left to cry, until Normani gently starts unwrapping herself from where Lauren is clutching onto her like a lifeline, until she’s empty.

Normani wipes her face with the back of her hand, smiling through watery eyes. “I’m sorry she can’t love you like you deserve,” she says, so softly it almost doesn’t reach Lauren’s ears.

But Lauren almost smiles, a foreign feeling to her puffy tear stained face, and lets out a breath she’s been holding for years. “Me too.”

 

There’s nothing specific that makes her break it off—or at least that’s what she tells herself, anyway.

Brad is really sweet and attractive, and he never pushes her for more after their first time if she says she’s not feeling like it. He greets her every morning at school with a kiss on the cheek, and he gives her rides home after softball practice.

He’s nice.

And that’s just it—everything with him is  _nice_.

She wonders if there’s something wrong with her that she finds that an issue.

They never fight, and whenever he can see she’s getting upset at something he said he apologizes instead of challenging her over it, and maybe she’s just not used to things not being hard. Maybe she’s so used to having her heart put through a grater that she’s come to expect it.

And how fucked up is that?

How fucked up is it that locking eyes with Camila from across a room makes her feel more than Brad trailing kisses down her neck? It’s not even necessarily better—just  _more_. And Lauren’s starting to crave more.

She’s stubborn, though, and Normani’s doubts about her and Brad ring in the back of her mind and make her force herself to push any distractions out of her mind and refocus on Brad to cup his face when he smiles at her in the way she’s come to know meanshe’s dying to kiss her.

It’s hard to keep doing that when he confronts her, though.

“Is everything okay?”

“Hmm?” she hums, snapping her attention back to him as they sit on a bench at the mall waiting to head into the movie they were going to watch. He frowns at her, and she realizes she had just completely zoned out while he brushed her hair back to kiss under her ear. “Oh, everything’s fine, babe.”

He doesn’t believe her. It’s obvious by the way he doesn’t go back to his caresses, simply turning on his seat and glancing down at his phone—he still holds her hand and runs his thumb softly over her knuckles, though, and something bitter weighs down on her throat.

It feels an awful lot like guilt.

“What’s going on with you?” he asks, stilling his movements, but not completely pulling away. There’s something in his eyes that Lauren recognizes as him bracing himself for pain, something she’s become the master of.

“I told you, nothing’s wrong,” she says, making her voice sound stronger than she feels. “Just—school’s stressing me out, I guess.”

He looks at her with dark eyes, and sighs. “You can be honest with me, Lauren. I’m not made of glass, and I’m your boyfriend. If something’s going on I’d rather you just tell me.”

Lauren swallows, her mouth dry at the thought of explaining her complicated history with Camila to  _Brad,_ of all people, and she glances at her phone. “Maybe after the movie,” she says to buy herself time to think, and hopefully make him forget this conversation ever happened.

“Okay,” he says, quietly, and Lauren tightens her grip on his hand and leans in enough to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.

He forces a smile and lets her wrap her arms around him while they walk into the theater, and he even pulls her closer when she cuddles up to him in their seats.

Lauren spends most of the movie trying to make Brad forget about the fact that they’re supposed to talk later, kissing him and cracking bad jokes about the movie. He lets it happen and sometimes he kisses her back, but she knows it’s a lost cause.

They don’t talk much when the movie is over, and the drive to Lauren’s house is quiet. She tries to hold his hand like usual, but for the first time he’s the one that pulls away and doesn’t seem to want to be affectionate. 

Lauren hates it. She knows it’s her fault and that she doesn’t have the right to feel upset, but she does. 

 

“Okay, let’s talk,” he says, turning down the radio as he pulls up in front of Lauren’s house. He doesn’t turn to look at her, staring—ironically enough—at Camila’s house instead.

Lauren doesn’t know where to start. She doesn’t want to tell him about Camila, both because she’s not ready and because he doesn’t deserve that. So she blinks and thinks about what to say, and he takes the silence as an answer.

“Come on, Lauren. Just talk to me.”

Lauren flinches at the way he says her name. It’s almost desperate, and suddenly she wonders how long he’s been noticing something’s obviously wrong with their relationship. How long he’s been wondering why she’s distant when they’re making out, and why she never wanted to have sex with him after the first time.

“I like you,” she starts, but he interrupts her by slamming his fist against the steering wheel.

“No, Lauren. God damn it, just say what you want to say. I can take it. I promise. Just—don’t leave me hanging.”

She holds her breath for a few moments after his outburst. He’s never been like that before, and it hurts that she can bring out this side of him. That he cares enough about her to get mad about it. That when she looks at him she doesn’t feel anything compared to when she looks at Camila.

She wonders if this is what Camila feels like every time she looks at Lauren—like she can never love her enough.

“I think we should break up,” she says, her voice shaking. “I just—it’s unfair to you.”

Brad doesn’t respond at first. He stares at her with eyes that reflect everything Lauren feels when she thinks about Camila, and his hands are trembling a little. Then his eyes fill with tears **,**  and he nods. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry—”

“It’s fine. You can’t help the way you feel, and I’d rather know now than after I fall in love with you even more.” 

Lauren looks at him then, and she hates that he fell for her and she can’t feel the same. She hates that he still looks at her the same, even after she broke his heart, and that she can’t bring herself to cry.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I thought I could—but I can’t.”

He clenches his jaw. “It’s not your fault.”

She reaches out to touch his hand, like she always does, and he leans forward. His lips catch hers for a moment, and she feels his tears on her cheeks, and then it’s over. He pulls back and wipes at his face and forces a smile.

“I’ll see you on Monday,” he says, his voice strained.

Lauren’s arms ache to hug him, because she hates to see him sad, but she can’t because she’s the reason. And she realizes that the fact that it hurts more that she broke his heart than that she just broke up with her boyfriend is exactly the reason she had to do it.

She gives him one more sad smile and he gives her a nod back. She opens the car door and gets out, and she forces herself not to turn around when she hears him speeding off before she reaches the front door of her house, too aware of how he never used to leavebefore she was inside.

 

She doesn’t realize how used she got to having Brad around until she doesn’t have him anymore.

It’s not like she doesn’t have her friends to text and hang out with during summer break, so her days are far from empty. It’s just that she doesn’t have the small things anymore—she doesn’t have his texts waiting for her when she gets home, she doesn’t have him offering to give her a ride to places, or him listening to the newest music she’s found with a genuine smile.  

It was nice to have that, and the first time she goes to the movies without him after their break up is harder than she thought it would be. They cross each other in town sometimes, and she tried to give him a weak smile once but he looked away, so she stops trying.

All she has left of their relationship is a dull kind of pain in her chest every time she sees him—that, and the box under her bed where she keeps all the ticket stubs from their dates with all the things he gave her.

She doesn’t want to talk about it, but his sudden absence is very much noticeable, and when Dinah finally asks the question of where Brad’s been while they go for lunchat the mall one day, everyone turns to look at Lauren expectantly.

“We broke up,” she mutters, shoving her food around her plate unenthusiastically. There’s a few murmurs from the girls, and she glances up to find Normani throwing Dinah a disapproving glare.

She appreciates that Normani has tried to be nothing but supportive—Lauren had texted her the night of the break up, and Normani had instantly called her and spent the rest of the night with her on the phone talking through things until Lauren finally cried out the mess of emotions in her.

It’s Normani who stuck by her side and nearly picked a fight the one day they walked by Brad’s friends in the mall and they threw looks Lauren’s way, but Lauren doesn’t need her friends to pick fights with each other, so she kicks her softly under the table and shakes her head.

“Are you okay?” Camila asks.

Lauren lets out a breath and pushes her hair back with one hand, giving up on the food she has no appetite for. Camila is looking at her with a small frown from the other side of the table, the way she used to when Lauren would try to pass off a tumble as nothing big even though it hurt so bad she wanted to cry.

“I’m fine,” she says, resolutely, fishing her phone out of her pocket so she has an excuse to get out of this conversation.

Keana brushes a hand down her arm from beside her, shooting her a tiny smile, and Lauren appreciates it when Ashley unsubtly moves the conversation to a different topic.

She still feels under the spotlight, somehow, her cheeks burning with the attention that was brought to the topic. She doesn’t want this breakup to mean anything, but she almost feels like it’s a big blaring sign pointing to all the feelings Lauren still keeps close to her heart, and she’s not sure how she feels about it.

“I almost preferred it when you were hanging off Brad’s arm,” Normani mutters next to her, and Lauren glares at her.

“What did you say?” Lauren asks, but Normani doesn’t back down from her annoyed tone.

“This pissed off jealous thing you’ve got going on is not cute,” Normani says, pointing up and down Lauren as if saying  _look at yourself_. “Every time you see the two of them it’s like you flip a switch that’s either going the sad mopey way or the jealous way.”

Lauren fumes, her gaze flickering against her will to where Camila is sitting with Austin on the grass of Normani’s backyard, smiling at him from under his arm. “Whatever,” she huffs, picking up her empty glass and getting up hastily. “I’m gonna go get a refill.”

Normani obviously doesn’t believe her excuse, giving her an unimpressed look, but waves her away regardless, so Lauren leaves before she has to watch Austin and Camila kiss.

It’s not like she  _chooses_  to be sad or jealous, it just happens every time she’s reminded of how much she’s not Camila’s person, and how Camila is still hers even after Lauren tried so hard to get her not to be.

It also sucks to be reminded of just how single she is right now, even though she doesn’t regret breaking up with Brad. It had to be done, because Brad was too invested and Lauren too little, but it still sucks when she finds Ashley and Keana wrapped up in each other in the kitchen, because it’s yet another reminder that Lauren doesn’t have anyone to do that with.

Lauren isn’t sure her love life will ever stop sucking at this point.

 

Summer break is uneventful after that, for the most part.

Ally is back in town, so their old group is complete once again, and Lauren spends most of her time hanging out with them and avoiding Camila as much as possible.

She tries to go back to the almost non-existent state of heartbreak from last year again, the way she was before Camila started attending high school, and before Brad. But apparently things never happen the same way twice—it’s almost impossible for Lauren to escape the feeling of incompletion every time the group gets together and Camila isn’t there.

It doesn’t make sense for Lauren to miss her, but she does. She actually truly misses Camila. Like, she still can’t really handle being around her and pretend she hasn’t spent her teenage years heartbroken because of her, but she also can’t handle not seeing her every day. She had just gotten used to not having Camila there, but now she can’t help her eyes from wandering the room in hopes of seeing Camila.

Things change the one time they do all hang out together. 

They’re all at the beach, and Lauren, Ally, Keana, and Ashley are all sitting in the water talking about things to do after high school. Ally wants everyone to consider going to college, but Ashley says she prefers to travel the world. Lauren and Keana both promise to look into all their options, even though Lauren’s pretty sure she wants to go to college after graduation—but they’re still only juniors, and they have time until they have to make a final decision.

Normani and Dinah join them in the water after a while, and Ally starts telling them all a story about a prank one of the people in her dorm building pulled.

It’s the third time Lauren has heard this story, so her mind inevitably starts wandering off. She leans her head back and closes her eyes, taking in the temperature of the water, revels in the waves she’ll probably still feel when she’s lying in bed tonight, and thinks about how much she loves her friends as they laugh around her. She thinks about Camila.

Her gaze flickers to the sand, where Camila and Austin are sat with all their things. Camila is on her phone while Austin is talking to her, and he looks annoyed. Like, really annoyed.

Lauren is too far away to be able to tell what’s going on, but she knows Camila, and it’s not hard to figure out that she is ignoring Austin from the way she’s staring down at her phone like it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen.

“Guys,” Lauren says after Ally’s story is over. ”Is it just me or are Camila and Austin fighting?”

Everyone immediately turns to look at them, and Lauren sighs at their lack of subtlety. But neither Camila nor Austin seem to notice their sudden audience, too wrapped up in whatever it is they’re arguing about. Camila’s finally put her phone away and now has her arms crossed over her chest, visibly rolling her eyes at everything that comes out of Austin’s mouth.

“They’ve been fighting a lot lately,” Dinah says, shrugging. “Rough patch in their relationship, I guess.”

Lauren looks at Dinah, not sure whether to hug or punch her. On the one hand it’s great news that Camila is fighting with her boyfriend all the time, but on the other Lauren hates that Dinah clearly knows more about Camila’s life than she does.

“What do you think they’re arguing about?” Ashley asks, moving a little closer to Keana. “It looks pretty serious.”

“They argue about everything. What time Austin is picking Mila up for literally anything, when Mila’s finally taking him to meet her parents, when—”

“She didn’t take him to meet her parents yet? They’ve been together for  _months_ ,” Keana interrupts. “There’s definitely trouble in paradise.”

Lauren can’t help the way her heart jumps a little at that, because as much as she wants to feel bad for Camila, there’s always a part of her hoping for her to come back to Lauren. As a friend, as—anything. She doesn’t really care anymore at this point.

She just wants Camila back.

 

Lauren doesn’t see Camila again after the beach until there are only two weeks left of summer break. She knows what’s going on with Camila and Austin, though, because Camila talks to Dinah, and Dinah talks to Normani, who tells Lauren about all the interesting developments in their relationship. (Something about her duty as Lauren’s best friend or something.)

So it’s inevitable that one day the words  ** _They broke up_**  flash on Lauren’s phone screen. It’s not like no one saw it coming, and Dinah is probably the only one who’s genuinely sad about it—other than Camila, of course.

Lauren considers sending Camila a text about it, but then she remembers she’s not supposed to know about this. Plus, she really doesn’t want to put herself in a position where she’ll end up having to listen to Camila crying about Austin. She’s probably also not the right person to help Camila get over a broken heart.

And there’s a part of her that’s relieved that this happened. She won’t have to see Camila kissing someone else, won’t have to see the two of them through Camila’s bedroom window, and she won’t have to hear about him anymore.

She knows it’s wrong, but she can’t help it. She can’t stop being in love with Camila, no matter how hard she tries otherwise. And she never even liked Austin anyway, which makes it a lot easier to justify the way her lips initially curled up into a grin when she read the text.

She glances down at her phone, where Normani’s text is still unread on the lock screen. She doesn’t have the heart or the energy to acknowledge her text in any real way right now, so she sets her phone aside and gets up from her bed.

She briefly considers grabbing her laptop to spend some time online before heading to sleep, but she knows that if she does that she’s just going to end up on Facebook stalking Camila and Austin’s profiles to see if they had changed their relationship status yet.

She bypasses her laptop and heads to her drawer instead, intent on grabbing some comfy pajamas, but then she stops.

She’s not sure what it is that makes her stop. It’s silly to think that it’s some kind of a sign, or that something in her is  _that_  synched up with Camila—and yet, she finds herself looking at Camila’s window.

The lights are off in Camila’s room, and Lauren almost turns back around when they flip on and Camila nears the window, intent on not being seen by her. She doesn’t, though—one of Camila’s hands is already on the curtain, ready to close it, but her eyes flicker up to Lauren’s bedroom window at the last moment, and shefreezes.

Her face is red and puffy, and even from where Lauren is standing she can see Camila’s been crying. Which, admittedly, makes a lot of sense since Camila just got her heart broken for quite possibly the first time in her life, and Lauren knows how hard that is to get over.

Their eyes lock. Camila’s bottom lip visibly trembles, and Lauren feels her own heart ache at the sight.

“Fuck,” she mutters, then sighs. “Fuck it.”

She gestures at herself and then at Camila, wrapping her arms around her own body with a questioning raise of her eyebrows.

Camila hesitates, then nods.

Lauren doesn’t waste any time after that. She races downstairs, past where her dad is asleep on the couch, and unlocks the front door. Two seconds later she finds herself at the doorstep of Camila’s house, and she has to take a deep breath to calm down her franticly beating heart.

Before Lauren gets the chance to knock, the door opens, revealing a tear-stained face and big,watery eyes. When Camila blinks, more tears spill down her cheeks, and for a moment they’re both frozen, staring at each other. 

Then Camila practically leaps forward and throws herself in Lauren’s arms. Her body is shaking with sobs, and Lauren stumbles back a few steps under the sudden weight. She wraps her arms around Camila and tangles her hand in her hair and rubs her back and  _holds_ her.

She feels Camila practically melt into her, and she can smell her shampoo and hear the soft whimpers she makes as she cries and her breath stutters into Lauren’s shoulder.

They stand on Camila’s doorstep for what feels like forever, and Camila never stops crying. Every now and then Lauren whispersquiet reassurance, but mostly shejust lets Camila cling to her like a lifeline and holds her the best she can.

It’s not until Camila starts shivering in the cool night air that Lauren starts pulling back. “Let’s go inside, okay? It’s freezing outside and I don’t want you catching a cold.”

Camila nods in silence. She doesn’t let go of Lauren, not really, holding on to her as they shuffle inside and climb up the still familiarstairs to Camila’s bedroom.

When they step into Camila’s room and the door closes behind them, Lauren tries not to think about how this is the first time she’s been up here in years, intent on focusing on Camila and getting her to calm down instead.

There’s something odd about seeing heartbreak on other people, and despite her quick decision to come over, Lauren isn’t too sure how to handle it. So she racks her brain and thinks about Ally and Normani and how they usually get her to calm down.

“Do you want anything? I can make you some tea, or hot cocoa or something?” she asks softly, watching as Camila curls into herself in her bed.

Camila shakes her head, pressing her face into a pillow. “Just—can you just sit with me?” It comes out muffled, but even in that one short sentence, her voice breaks.

“Of course.” Lauren sits down next to her, rubbing small circles on her back. Camila moves so she can press her face to Lauren’s shoulder instead of her pillow, and continues to cry. She’s not sobbing hysterically anymore, but there are still tears streaming down her face, and she wraps her arms tightly around Lauren’s waist.

Lauren puts both her arms around Camila, pulling her into a hug. Her neck and T-shirt are soaked from Camila’s tears, and she doesn’t care, but she briefly wonders how long a tiny person like Camila can cry before dehydrating.

Not knowing what to say, Lauren stays quiet. Somewhere in the back of her mind she’s hyper aware of the fact that she’s holding  _Camila_  in her arms, but she doesn’t allow the thought to take over. She just lets Camila cry until she’s done and starts pulling away. Her eyes are even darker than usual, and even though she’s looking at Lauren, she’s not  _seeing_  her. Not really.

“Are you—” Lauren starts, but she stops when Camila’s nostrils flare.

“He just— _he dumped me_. Told me he couldn’t do it anymore. Just like that. Out of nowhere. After everything he just—” Camila’s voice catches in her throat and her eyes widen. “Oh my god, he said he loves me and then he dumped me.”

Lauren clenches her jaw. A combination of adrenaline and aggressiveness surges through her veins, and she has to resist the urge to get up and drive to Austin’s house to punch him in the face. But Camila’s sitting heartbroken in front of her and Lauren knows she can’t do anything about it. She just wants Camila to be okay.

“He’s an asshole who doesn’t deserve you,” Lauren says. It sounds awfully cliché, but it’s true. “You’re better than him.”

Camila blinks slowly, looking up at Lauren with dead eyes. “How do you know that?”

“Anyone who doesn’t choose you first doesn’t deserve you,” Lauren says, almost immediately. She means to add that she’s talking about a general you, but she’s not—and Camila probably knows that.

“I guess,” Camila sighs after another moment of silence. Her voice is still hoarse from crying earlier, but other than that she seems relatively calm. Her gaze flickers down to where their fingers are intertwined, and she tenses a little.

But she doesn’t pull away. She just sighs again. “Sorry for ruining your shirt.”

Lauren looks at Camila, studies her face. It’s still red and swollen, and the tears stains are even more obvious from up close. They’re so close to each other that Lauren can see where the color of Camila’s irises melt into black. They’re so close Lauren could lean in and kiss her.

“I’m tired,” Camila says, softly. 

“You should go to sleep.” Lauren bites her lip. “Do you want me to leave? I can come back tomorrow, if you want.”

Camila pauses, then shakes her head. “I don’t want to be alone yet.”

“Okay,” Lauren nods. “I’ll stay.”

Camila gives her the best attempt at a smile, and starts digging under her covers. She pulls out a onesie and, almost hesitantly, lets go of Lauren’s hand. “I’m—uh—going to put this on.” 

Lauren watches as Camila disappears into the bathroom, the memory of Ally making herself busy with her phone while she changed into pajamas that one night flashing through her mind. It’s almost funny, the similarities between then and now.

She lets her eyes wander around Camila’s room then. Not much has changed. There are a few more posters—mostly One Direction and Demi Lovato—and some framed photographs of Camila and Dinah, as well as pictures of Camila, Dinah, Normani, and Lauren when they were younger, and one—

Lauren crosses the room and picks up the photo. It’s covered in a layer of dust, but it’s undoubtedly a picture of herself and Camila as kids. They’re in Camila’s backyard, completely unaware that they were being photographed, and even though Lauren doesn’t remember the exact day this picture was taken, she feels a pull of longing in her chest.

“What are you— _oh_.”

Lauren turns around swiftly, putting the picture back. Camila is standing in the middle of the room in her onesie, her face no longer as red and puffy, and she looks absolutely adorable. Lauren’s heart flutters at the sight, but she forces herself to breathe normally.

“I was just looking at your pictures,” she says. “I like the one from when we were kids. I think I have some, too, somewhere.”

Camila stands frozen for a moment, and Lauren prepares herself for a string of  _girlsarenotsupposedtokissothergirls_ , but it doesn’t come. Instead, Camila actually cracks a small smile, and climbs into her bed, lifting the covers for Lauren to climb in next to her.

It’s sort of strange, Lauren lying fully dressed next to Camila in a onesie, but at the same time Lauren feels more comfortable than she’s been in a long time.

They’re not cuddling like when Ally stayed to make sure Lauren fell asleep alright, but Lauren still feels Camila’s presence everywhere. Her body is on high alert, and every time Camila makes the slightest movement she feels shivers down her spine.

For a moment, Lauren thinks Camila has fallen asleep, but then Camila rolls over so that they’re facing each other. Their eyes lock, and Lauren feels like she’s struck by lightning when Camila gives a tiny smile.

“I forgot how green your eyes were.”

Lauren almost blinks in surprise. She opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. She’s not used to Camila being gentle anymore. She’s not used to  _Camila_  anymore.

“Sometimes I think about how close we used to be, you know, when we were kids. I miss that,” Camila continues. “I miss you.” She lets out a soft sigh, and then she turns back around.

Lauren stares at the back of Camila’s head, her heart in her throat. Suddenly she’s not sure how she got here, or how time went by so quickly—all she knows is that she misses Camila, too. Now more than ever.

 

When Lauren wakes up in the middle of the night, Camila is wrapped around her like a koala clinging to a tree.

 

There’s a shift in their relationship after that night. Lauren no longer feels a dull ache in her chest every time she sees Camila, and Camila no longer looks at Lauren with a hint of pain in her eyes.

Lauren starts to hope again. She realizes it one day when they’re hanging out in Lauren’s backyard with everyone else, because there’s this moment when Camila catches her gaze and  _smiles_ , and all Lauren can think about is kissing her.

Like, Lauren never really stopped thinking about kissing Camila, but over time it started to become more of an idea—something abstract that could never become reality. So when she feels butterflies in her stomach at the sight of Camila’s smile, she knows she’s fucked.

She’s falling in love with Camila all over again, and there’s nothing she can do about it. Because now Camila doesn’t pull away when Lauren reaches for her hand, or pulls her into a hug, or puts her head on her shoulder.

She’s falling, and she doesn’t stand a chance.

 

Lauren can’t get Camila’s sleepy, “ _I miss you_ ,” out of her head. It plays through her mind on an endless loop, like a record on replay, and the only reason she hasn’t brought it up is because she doesn’t want to lose Camila again. She  _can’t_  lose her again, not now that she finally has her back.

But it’s not like Lauren didn’t know. Despite Camila’s best efforts not to let it show, Lauren always knew the empty feeling was mutual. It was in how Camila subconsciously gravitated towards Lauren every time they were in the same room, the same way Lauren’s heart pulled her closer to Camila, too. It was in Camila’s inability to always keep her voice steady whenever they spoke. It was in the way Camila’s gaze drifted up to Lauren’s bedroom window when she thought Lauren wasn’t seeing.

Lauren’s always known, because she misses Camila, too. She just doesn’t know what to do about it.

Even now that they’re sitting in Lauren’s backyard, side by side with just the two of them, she misses her. Spending time with Camila is almost enough to fill the empty space in Lauren’s heart, but that had been growing for years, and Lauren still longs to reach out and hold her hand, or lean over and kiss her.

“Are you excited about junior year?” Camila asks.

Lauren shrugs, squinting against the sunlight to look at Camila. “I guess. Gotta start looking into colleges and stuff.”

“Any idea what you want yet?”

“Something with a good psychology program, or maybe English lit,” Lauren says. “I just—I want something that interests me, even if jobs are scarce in whatever I end up choosing.”

Camila hums at that. “You should do what makes you happy. Happiness is important.”

Lauren hesitates. She sits up, holding up her hand to cast a shadow over her eyes. “Are you happy?”

“Uh, I guess?” Camila shrugs. “Are you?”

“I guess,” Lauren says. “It kind of depends on the day, I think.”

Camila frowns. “Like how?”

“Like—uh.” Lauren pauses. She looks at Camila and wonders if it would scare her away if she told her. “When people I care about are happy, I’m usually happier, too,” she settles for, averting her gaze to avoid Camila’s. “Does that make sense?”

“It does.” 

Lauren stares at her hands, swallowing all the words she didn’t say. Her day is usually brightened when Camila smiles at her, or even when Camila acknowledges her existence in a way that doesn’t make her heart ache. But Camila can’t know about that—it would only drive her away.

She briefly wonders about when it was that she gave Camila that immense power, but she can’t pinpoint the exact moment. They grew up together—there was never a moment where Camila wasn’t a presence in her life somehow. Lauren’s spent her entire life falling in love with and having her heart broken by Camila, and Camila still manages to take her breath away every time she lays eyes on her.

“I still miss you, though,” Camila says, softly. 

Lauren’s eyes snap up. “What?”

Camila gives her a sad smile. “I mean, I know it’s sort of my own fault and stuff, but feelings don’t work like that. Your heart doesn’t listen to whether it’s rational or whether you have the right to miss someone—you just can’t help it.”

Lauren’s mouth goes dry and she blinks, her tongue paralyzed. Her eyes flicker up to Camila’s, but no matter how hard she tries, she can’t find a single trace of dishonesty in them. Fear and sadness, maybe, but that’s all there is.

“I understand if you’re not ready to forgive me yet. I just wanted to let you know.” Camila averts her gaze, staring back at the cloudless sky.

But Lauren’s mind is racing, and her heart is beating against her chest with a force she hasn’t felt in a long time. Camila’s right—she’s not ready to forgive her. She doesn’t know if she ever will. But she’s still in love with her, and, like Camila said, love isn’t rational.

Camila must see it coming, because Lauren casts a shadow over her face when she moves in front of her, and her eyes flicker down to Lauren’s lips. Camila sees it coming, and she still doesn’t move away. 

Lauren kisses Camila, gently and hungrily at the same time, breathing into Camila’s mouth as she cups her face. For a moment, time freezes.

Camila is softer than Lauren remembers, and she kisses her back.

Kissing Camila is different from kissing Brad or kissing Ally—it’s better. Because Lauren feels her heart burst out of her chest and Camila’s touch sets her skin on fire. It’s better, because Lauren is  _in love_  with Camila, and kissing her is all she ever wanted.

It only lasts a moment. 

Lauren’s head is still swimming when Camila wraps her fingers around Lauren’s wrists to pull her hands from her face, and turns away from the kiss. She lets out a sharp breath against Lauren’s jaw, tears welling up in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she says, pushing Lauren back as she scrambles to her feet. “I can’t—I thought I—but—I—”

Her words ring in Lauren’s ears, echoing through her mind. Lauren can’t move, paralyzed with the heaviness of having her heart shattered into a million pieces. With the taste of Camila’s lips still on her tongue, Lauren stares helplessly as Camila rushes out of the backyard.

It makes her feel like she’s eleven years old again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the long wait...again. at least the chapter is extra long! we hope you enjoyed it, and thank you for all the feedback we've been getting. please don't hesitate to kudo or comment, we really appreciate it.


	5. Camila

Lauren breathes into Camila’s mouth, fingertips digging into the fabric of Camila’s shirt. Her eyes are clenched shut as she tells herself this is what she wants. She wants Camila. She wants Camila to kiss her. She wants this.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she hears a voice telling her that they need to talk, but it’s hard to be reasonable with Camila’s knee pressing between her thighs; Camila’s hands pushing her back by her shoulders until her back hits the bedroom wall.

“Camz—” she tries, weakly—torn between wanting Camila’s lips to stay right where they are, and wanting them to say words and talk about feelings.

But, “Shh. It’s okay. No talking.” Camila shoves Lauren back against the wall, harshly like she’s trying to hurt her. And Lauren lets her, drunk on the taste of Camila’s lips.

At least Camila isn’t running away anymore.

When Lauren gets to their usual lunch table, Camila and Dinah are laughing at something on Camila’s phone. They don’t really acknowledge Lauren’s arrival with more than a glance her way, and Lauren suppresses a sigh as she sits down on the opposite side of the table.

She tries not to stare at Camila, tries not to think about the way it felt to have her hands tangled with her hair the other night, but her eyes inevitably end up on Camila’s face anyway. Camila’s too beautiful not to look at.

“Try being more subtle next time,” Normani whispers in her ear, sliding into the seat on Lauren’s left.

Lauren looks up and attempts to roll her eyes convincingly. “I wasn’t—I mean, I was staring into space. Not—you know.”

“Sure,” Normani says.

“Seriously,” Lauren exclaims, right before realizing she said that too loud, causing everyone at their table to turn and look at her for a moment.

“I totally believe you, whatever Mani’s up your ass about,” Keana says, dropping her bag on the floor. “What _is_ Mani up your ass about?”

“Everything. I’m never good enough for her,” Lauren replies, as casually as possible. She’s highly aware of the way Camila’s gaze shifts between Lauren and Normani for a moment, but she decides to ignore it. If Camila wants to know, she’ll ask later. (She already knows Camila won’t ask, because asking means talking, and Camila doesn’t like talking.)

“That’s not true,” Normani protests, but Keana looks at her skeptically.

“That’s plausible,” she decides, playfully flipping off Normani. “I’m Team Lauren.”

Lauren high fives her. “You have a free period after this, too, right?” She pulls out her phone to check her text messages. “Someone did, anyway.”

“Yeah, that was me,” Keana nods. “Glad to hear I’m so memorable. Maybe I’ll join Team Normani instead.”

Normani whoops, looking up from her own phone with a grin. She holds up her fist for Keana to fist bump her, almost punching Lauren’s eye in the process. Lauren leans back to let her friends be idiots together, before turning her attention back to Keana.

“How’s Ash? She sent me a bunch of pictures yesterday, but they were all blurry, and I’m pretty sure she was drunk.”

Keana’s eyes somehow manage to light up and turn a little sad at the same time. “Yup, she was definitely drunk. She went to visit Ally in college, because apparently she needs more experiences to write songs about, or something. College parties are an obvious requirement.”

“Obviously.”

“No, but she’s good. Enjoying her freedom for as long as it lasts, because next week she has to start her new job at some diner. Neither of us is really looking forward to it, but at least she’ll be able to take me out on fancy dates with all the money she’ll be earning.” Keana shrugs. “I said we’d all come into the diner when she has to work and we’ll be obnoxious customers.”

Lauren grins. “Sounds like a plan. We’ll pretend they have a secret menu and try to order off of it.”

“Can we come, too?” Dinah asks, gesturing at herself and Camila.

“Uh—” Keana says. “I guess? Got any good strategies in mind?”

Dinah cracks her knuckles. “I’ve got lots.”

Lauren watches as Keana and Dinah lean closer to each other over the table to start discussing the best ways to annoy Ashley, trying to ignore the way Camila is obviously staring at her now that her conversation with Dinah is over.

Even though it’s been over a month since they kissed in Lauren’s backyard and they’ve been seeing each other at school all the time, there’s some kind of silent agreement that nothing that happens when they’re ‘doing homework’ together will ever see the light of day. But Lauren can still feel the ghost of Camila’s lips pressed against her own from last night, and the night before that, and the night before that.

Lauren isn’t sure why she keeps her mouth shut about it. She hasn’t even told Normani yet, and she tells Normani everything—especially now that she doesn’t have to hide from her anymore.

There’s just something in the way Camila looks at Lauren that makes her feel kind of bad. A certain sort of defeat shimmers in her eyes every time their gazes meet, like she’s tired of fighting against her heart. But at the same time, Lauren can still see the same fear that’s been burning inside her own chest for as long as she can remember every time Camila tells her to stop talking when things get too personal.

The worst part is that Lauren understands. She feels everything that makes Camila’s hands tremble, too. Everything that makes Camila kiss her to shut her up, she understands. She just hopes that this phase of kissing and not talking doesn’t last forever—she’s not sure she can keep hurting like this much longer.

 

After lunch, Lauren and Keana debate whether it’ll be worth it to sneak off campus to add McDonald’s to their lunch, but in the end they decide against it. They make their way to an empty corner of the softball field instead, dropping their bags and using them as pillows as they lie down.

It’s quiet for a while as Lauren stares at the sky and tries to make a mental list of all the reasons why she needs to get over Camila as soon as possible.

Then, “You know how I got held back a year because we moved in the middle of a school year and my English wasn’t as good back then?”

Lauren looks over at Keana. “Yeah, I think you mentioned it before.”

Keana tears a fistful of grass out of the field. “I never really cared about that before, you know? Like, I don’t necessarily feel like I’m older than you or Mani or whatever. But right now it sucks that I’m stuck in high school while Ash is out to explore the world and doing all kinds of cool things. Like, it would be less shitty if it were one year instead of two.”

Lauren thinks about that for a while. “Do you think it’s going to be a problem down the line?”

“I don’t know,” Keana says, a sigh escaping her lips. “She said she wanted to travel the world with me, but I’m going to be here for at least another two years, and I might want to go to college afterwards. I don’t want to stop her from travelling or doing what she wants, you know? That would be the most selfish thing I’d ever do.”

“You can take a gap year,” Lauren suggests. “Travel around for a year, and then come back and go to college. It’s something to look forward to, and this way you both compromise a little.”

Keana gives her a sad smile. “I’d have to take two, because travelling is expensive and college is even more expensive, so I’d have to work my ass off saving for a year, and then travelling. I don’t want to be twenty-one when I’m starting college, Lo.”

“No one cares if you’re twenty-one and a freshmen in college. You’ll be able to buy everyone drinks with your totally-not-fake ID.”

“I’ll care. I don’t mind being a year older than everyone else, but three years is a lot right now.”

Lauren reaches out to touch Keana’s arm. Keana looks at her with sadness in her eyes, and Lauren swallows. She hates seeing her friends sad and upset. “Did you talk to Ash about all of this?”

Keana bites her lip. “I—I mean, not really. Not yet. I don’t want her to think I’m breaking up with her.”

“Are you?”

“No.” Keana’s eyes widen, then she relaxes. “I mean, I don’t want to. I’m just trying to figure out what to do, you know? I feel like she has a much better grip on life, and I’m just floating in space, trying to do everything and be everywhere at once.”

Lauren sits up, crossing her legs. “You should probably talk to her and see how she feels first. Maybe she already thought all this through and you’re just overreacting because you miss her.”

It’s ironic. Here she is, giving relationship advice and telling Keana to talk things through, when all she ever does with Camila is not talk about anything.

“I guess I’m just scared of what the answer might be,” Keana says.

A faint smile traces Lauren’s lips. “You’ll be fine. She loves you.”

Keana lets out a soft sigh. “I hope it’s enough.”

Lauren blinks. It had never crossed her mind that Keana and Ashley would one day _not_ work out—like, that was just not a possibility. They love each other, and the fact that that might not be enough weighs heavily in her chest. All Lauren can do is try to remember how to breathe when she realizes that if love isn’t enough for Keana and Ashley, she doesn’t know how to make it work with her and Camila.

“It will be,” she says. “You’ll work through it. I believe in you.”

Keana turns to look at her, and she puts her hand over Lauren’s. “Thanks, Lo.” She pauses, and then, “For what it’s worth, I believe in you, too. With, _you know_. Whatever happens, you’ll make it out alive.”

Something breaks inside of Lauren at those words, and she bites her lip because she doesn’t want to cry—she _can’t_ cry about Camila again. She closes her eyes to keep the tears from spilling, lying back down and turning her face away from Keana.

Keana squeezes her hand, but doesn’t say anything else while Lauren struggles to keep herself together. It’s not even that Lauren minds Keana knowing how much that gets to Lauren—she got used to that a long time ago, even if neither of them really acknowledged it since Lauren’s breakdown in the bathroom last year.

It just hurts that maybe loving someone as much as a person can love another really doesn’t mean that things will end up okay.

 

Camila’s lips faintly taste of the banana she’d been eating earlier, and her hands are soft on Lauren’s skin. It’s intoxicating and distracting, and Lauren almost forgets why she knocked on Camila’s door in the first place.

“Camz,” she breathes, her lips trembling against Camila’s. “Can we please t—”

Camila tenses for a moment, pressing her lips harder against Lauren’s. Her fingers hitch up Lauren’s shirt to expose part of her stomach, and Lauren feels her knees getting weak when Camila’s nails dig into her skin.

She weakly tries to push Camila away, but then Camila slips her tongue into Lauren’s mouth, and there’s no place for coherent thoughts anymore.

 

Sometimes Lauren thinks that this might be the final destination of their journey. Emotionless kissing that leads to nothing, Camila stringing her along and Lauren following willingly no matter how much her heart aches for more.

She can’t help but hope otherwise, though. Especially in moments like this, when Camila is sitting beside her, peaceful and lazy in sweats, looking as approachable as she did when they were six and Lauren would ask to hold her hand.

It’s in moments like this that Lauren can most feel her heart aching for that innocence, for the certainty that she was exactly where she should be that she used to feel around Camila before things turned painful.

Camila probably feels Lauren looking at her—she’s always seemed to be able to sense it, somehow, and this time it’s no different. She turns her way and gives her a lazy smile, and, in an uncontrolled moment, Lauren slides closer into her on the couch to press a kiss to the corner of that smile.

Camila blinks and seems to wake up a little at that, and sheer desperation suddenly grips at Lauren’s heart. “Wait,” she mumbles, grabbing Camila’s hand with her own and not letting either of them pull away.

She looks into Camila’s eyes, and she can tell by the wide eyed look Camila is giving her that her pulse might be beating just as erratically as Lauren’s is right now. That look is filled with fear, and Lauren runs her thumb over Camila’s knuckles to try to soothe it away.

“Can we just—” Lauren takes a breath and closes her eyes. “We’re okay. Right? We were okay.”

She feels Camila nod minutely against her, and she opens her eyes again to see her biting her lip harshly. She lets go of Camila’s hand to brush her thumb over her lip gently and get her to stop biting it, and she doesn’t miss how Camila’s lip trembles under her touch.

“Can we just pretend it’s okay, then? That we’re not fucking terrified, we’re just… We’re just okay. Can we do that?”

Camila exhales harshly, and for a moment, Lauren thinks she’s going to have her heart broken all over again. But then Camila nods and leans her head on Lauren’s shoulder—still trembling, still scared, but trying.  

Their fingers intertwine between them, and for a moment it really does feel like it’s okay.

They don’t talk after that, just hold on to each other. Lauren is too scared she’ll mess things up by saying the wrong thing, and judging by the way Camila keeps leaning into her more and more, she’s falling asleep.

Lauren waits until Camila’s breathing evens out completely before leaning her own head against hers and closing her eyes. She can smell Camila’s shampoo and it takes everything in her power not to move and wrap both her arms around her. That could wake Camila up, though, which would mean she’d pull away and their moment would be over, so for now she’s content with just sitting together like this.

She figures it’s better to have Camila in some way than not have her at all.

 

Camila’s always been terrified of skating, which, in hindsight, Lauren should have thought about before suggesting they all go to the roller skating rink in town.

It’s not just skating Camila’s scared of—it’s pretty much anything that requires Camila to depend on coordination to balance herself while in potentially high speed, which Lauren knows because she was once the one always helping her get back up and convincing her to give it a go again.

Camila never said a word against going skating though, and Lauren didn’t remember until they’re at the rink putting their skates on and Lauren can see Camila going ghastly pale as she stares at the rink.

“Come on, Walz,” Dinah says, slapping Camila’s thigh before jumping onto her feet and heading to the rink entrance after Normani.

“I’ll be right—” Camila starts, before clamping her mouth shut and letting out a breath loud enough for Keana to turn to look at her from beside Lauren.

“You alright over there?” Keana asks, and when Camila just nods and stares down at her skates, Lauren grimaces.

Lauren and Keana exchange a look, and Keana gets up with a pat to Lauren’s knee to join Normani and Dinah where they’re already speeding across the rink.

“You know you don’t have to do this,” Lauren tells Camila, finishing to tie her own skates and dropping her feet to the ground.

“No, I want to, it’s just been a while since I did this,” Camila says, lowering her feet to the ground from where she’s sitting as well.

“You’ll be fine,” Lauren says. “You know how to ride the skates, remember? And I can help you around a little bit if that helps.”

Camila looks at her, and Lauren offers her her hand. “Come on, I feel bad enough already that I basically forced you to come here. Let me at least help you a little.”

Lauren pretends that the way Camila stares down at her hand hesitantly doesn’t hurt. She knows that Camila’s hesitance isn’t because of her fear of falling, but because if she accepts her help that means she’ll be holding onto Lauren’s hand in front of other people.

“Camila, it’s just skating,” she says when the silence between them stretches too long. Her voice comes out far too weak to her own ears, but it seems to spur Camila on, because she presses her lips together and grabs Lauren’s hand before starting to get up from her seat.

Lauren’s heart jumps, and she forces herself to get on her feet to help Camila head towards the rink instead of staring at her wide eyed. Camila’s hand is sweaty in hers by the time they get to the edge of the rink, but Lauren just tightens her grip and holds on when Camila thinks she’s losing her balance and yelps.

“You’re fine,” Lauren assures her, guiding her easily enough as they stick to the edge of the rink where Camila can grip onto the wall with one hand and to Lauren with the other.

The other girls woosh past them multiple times, Normani twirling and spinning seamlessly around the few other scattered skaters in the rink and Dinah teasing Camila loudly when she flies by at top speed, but Lauren pays them no mind.

The first time it happens, though, when Dinah skates by and bursts the tiny little bubble they’d managed to isolate themselves into, Camila freezes, and Lauren thinks she’s about to bail. She’s sure Camila is going to drop her hand and say she’s changed her mind, that she’s just going to leave, but she doesn’t. Instead **,** Camila looks around the rink nervously, eyes lingering over each person that pays absolutely no attention to them before looking back down at her feet clumsily skating along.

Lauren can tell she’s nervous, but she doesn’t bail, so Lauren sticks to her side and flips Dinah off the next time she flies by them.

“You wanna try going in there for a little bit?” Lauren asks when they’ve gone back and forth along the wall a few times and Camila seems to have grown more sure of herself, her grip on Lauren’s hand much more relaxed than before. When Camila glances over at where Keana is skating in slow circles with her hands behind her back, Lauren smiles. She knows that look; Camila wants to do the same but is too nervous to do it. “Come on, I’ll help you.”

“Wait, Lauren—” Camila squeaks, but Lauren’s already pulling her further into the rink, and Camila’s other hand shoots out before her to try to keep her balance as she’s pulled along. “I’m gonna fall, wait—”

“You’re fine,” Lauren says easily enough, turning so she’s skating backwards before Camila, chuckling when Camila grabs her wrist with her free hand, the other still held tightly in her grip. “Look, you’re fine.”

It takes Camila a couple of moments, but when she realizes they’re gliding along easily enough, she starts to relax again, a smile starting to spread across her lips as Lauren guides her around the rink in a large circle.

“You wanna try by yourself?” Lauren asks, starting to untangle her fingers from Camila’s, but Camila instantly tightens her grip on her and refuses to let go, so Lauren laughs and relents, continuing to help her along.

A few minutes later she tries again, and this time Camila lets her loosen their hold on each other slowly. Lauren keeps her hands hovering by Camila’s in reassurance, glancing behind herself every now and again to make sure she’s not about to crash into someone, but letting Camila balance and skate along by herself.

“Oh my God, I’m doing it,” Camila exclaims breathlessly, and the grin on her face probably gives Lauren a small heart attack. “Oh my God, you guys, I’m doing it!”

Dinah flies by them and drops a smack to Camila’s ass, instantly making Camila fumble, but Lauren grips her by the forearms to keep her up, laughing at the flustered curse Camila sends Dinah’s way.

When Camila thanks her with a flushed grin, Lauren has to work really hard to not pull her closer into herself, content enough that Camila doesn’t pull away even as she grows sure enough of herself to skate alone.

 

Lauren understands why Camila is scared. She honestly does. It’s probably the only reason she hasn’t put her foot down yet—the only reason she still hopes for Camila to come to her senses.

It’s not the only reason she lets Camila kiss her every time things get too emotional to talk without fear lacing through every word that leaves Camila’s mouth. Kissing is easy. It could mean anything.

Just because it means _something_ to Lauren doesn’t mean it actually does. Not at moments like these, when Camila is gasping into her mouth and shoving her against a wall with such force it would take Lauren’s breath away if Camila hadn’t already.

“Camila,” she tries, softly pushing at her shoulders. “Camz.”

Camila presses her forehead against Lauren’s, and Lauren thinks she might be crying. “Please, Lo. Just—please.”

Lauren swallows the lump in her throat away, bringing a hand up to cup the back of Camila’s neck. “Okay,” she whispers, a sense of control flowing through her veins for the first time in what feels like forever. She pulls Camila back into the kiss, feeling Camila’s tears on her own cheeks right before their lips meet.

 

Normani notices something is up. Lauren’s not sure how she knows, but she catches Normani staring at her and Camila sometimes, and there’s something about the way she looks at them that makes it obvious to Lauren that she’s analyzing their interactions.

Perhaps Lauren’s as good as reading Normani as Normani is at reading her, because she’s not really surprised when she’s pulled aside right before lunch one day.

Normani takes her to the bleachers instead of the cafeteria, looking at her expectantly once they settle ~~d~~ down on the top ones.

“What?” Lauren asks, mildly annoyed that Normani is making her eat lunch without their friends and Camila.

It’s not like Lauren and Camila actually socialize during lunch breaks, not like Lauren does with Keana, or like Camila does with Dinah, but they’ve started sitting closer to each other recently, and yesterday Camila even sat down next to Lauren, so there’s improvement that Lauren can’t help but be excited about.

“Something’s up with you and Camila,” Normani says. “Not to be rude or anything, but you don’t look like you want to cry every time she even so much as glances your way anymore. What happened?”

Lauren blinks. For a moment she honestly, truly considers not telling Normani. There’s still that final part of the promise she made to Camila that’s untouched, and Lauren would be breaking that final piece if she tells her. She’d be letting go of that final piece she’s kept to herself all this time.

But Normani already knows pretty much everything else that happened, and there’s this flutter in Lauren’s chest every time she thinks about Camila’s lips against her own that she wants to gush to her best friend about, so she can’t really _not_ tell Normani.

“I kissed her.”

Normani’s eyes widen. “You _what_?”

“A few weeks before the end of summer break. We were talking and she said some stuff and I just—” Lauren shrugs. “And she kissed me back, but then she ran off. I think we’re okay now, though. Like, I thought maybe I’d ruined it, but—well, we kiss a lot, now.”

Normani doesn’t say anything for a while. She blinks and stares at Lauren, then frowns, until finally clearing her throat. “So you two are okay now? Did you talk about it? Does she know you’re, like,” she lowers her voice to a whisper, “in love with her?”

“I mean, I think she’s always known that. But no, we didn’t talk about it. I thought she’d go back to, like, hating me, or whatever, but she’s—well, I mean. You know?”

Normani gives her a slow nod, still frowning. “Does that mean she’s in love with you, too?”

“I don’t know,” Lauren says, clenching her jaw. “It’s just weird, you know? Like, two months ago she couldn’t even look at me, and now she kisses me every time no one’s around. I don’t want to push her away by asking too many questions.”

It’s quiet for another moment while they finish eating their lunch.

“I still think you should talk about it,” Normani says, eventually. “You guys spent so much time not talking and just assuming things, and that didn’t get you anywhere. Maybe it’s time for you to stop being scared and just—sit her down and _talk_.”

Lauren doesn’t reply immediately. She thinks about how she could manage to push Camila into an honest conversation, but every scenario she comes up with ends with Camila running out on her again. It scares her, makes her want to settle for whatever Camila can give her because she doesn’t want to risk losing her.

At the same time though, even when Camila runs away from their conversations, after they’ve been tangled in each other for what feels like both forever and not nearly enough time, she comes back. She comes back to Lauren every time, and as much as she tries to fight it, Lauren starts to hope again.

Lauren can hear someone playing guitar when she approaches Camila’s house again. She knows it’s Camila, because no one else in the Cabello residence plays the guitar, and she’s somehow managed to memorize Camila’s style. It’s different from everyone else’s style, or something. At least to Lauren it is.

She stands on the doorstep for a while, listening to the soft strumming drifting towards her from Camila’s open bedroom window. She can tell when Camila screws up because there’s an odd twinge to the song, followed by a long pause, and Lauren tries to work up her courage to knock.

Before she gets the chance, though, Camila’s mom opens the front door. “I saw you heading this way through the window,” she says, stepping back to let Lauren enter. “Camila is right upstairs.”

Lauren gives her a nervous smile. Sinu’s eyes are kind, like always, and it’s sort of nerve wracking that she hasn’t asked Lauren why she stopped coming over for over four years. Lauren knows that Camila’s family must’ve wondered about it, because her own family did, and it wasn’t until she broke down over dinner one time that they stopped asking.

“Thank you,” she says, giving Sinu a polite nod. There’s a certain familiarity surrounding Camila’s house—Lauren used to spend all her free time in here. She takes in the comfort of her surroundings as she truges up the stairs to Camila’s bedroom, following the sound of her guitar as she looks at pictures hung on the walls. There are more pictures of Camila and Sofi throughout the years, and less of tiny Lauren and Camila, and she can spot a new coat of paint on the walls, but it’s still the same house.

When she gets to Camila’s bedroom, the door is closed, but she can hear the guitar even better now. Camila is softly singing along to the chords, barely loud enough for Lauren to make out the words, and Lauren has to pause.

Camila used to sing all the time when they were younger. Nowadays she sometimes has a microphone when the school band performs at events, but this is the first time Lauren really gets to hear her sing comfortably. It feels kind of wrong, standing on the opposite side of a closed door to listen to the girl you’re in love with sing, but Lauren can’t get herself to unfreeze.

There’s a flutter in her chest, a skip to her breath, and Lauren recognizes it as falling in love.

Then the music stops. She can hear some ruffling of paper and a few hesitant chords, but Camila doesn’t start singing again.

Lauren blinks, remembering why she’s here in the first place. She raises her hand and, before she can change her mind, knocks twice. “Camz? It’s me.”

On the other side of the door, Camila stops playing. There’s footsteps and the faint sound of fingertips running over guitar strings, and then the door opens.

“Hey,” Camila says. “I didn’t hear the doorbell.”

“Your mom let me in,” Lauren says, gaze flickering down to Camila’s lips. “I didn’t want to interrupt your playing.”

Camila frowns. “You did, sort of. But it’s okay.” She allows Lauren to step into her room, and closes the door behind her.

“Right. Sorry.”

“I was done anyway,” Camila says. Her eyes drift over Lauren’s body, stopping right before their gazes lock, and suddenly she’s in front of her. “I missed you.”

Lauren swallows. The difference in tone from the night Camila and Austin broke up is so strong it feels kind of like the knife that seems to be permanently stuck in her stomach is twisting, tearing open old wounds that haven’t quite healed yet.

“Camz,” she whispers, her heart in her throat, Camila’s face so close it’s almost impossible to focus on forming words right now. “I think we need to stop. Like, this isn’t healthy. You and me, I mean. What we’re doing.”

Camila exhales sharply, her breath causing shivers down Lauren’s spine. She moves even closer, until her lips brush Lauren’s. It’s like replaying a scene from a movie over and over again, and Lauren knows what’s coming next. She closes her eyes, waiting for Camila to kiss her, to shut her up.

It doesn’t come.

When Lauren opens her eyes, Camila is on the other side of the room, looking out of the window.

Lauren’s overwhelmed with confusion at the sight. It’s not right; not what she expected. Camila’s breaking their pattern now, and though Lauren is probably to blame for doing it first, she’s rooted to the spot.

The silence that falls over them is unbearable, pressing down on Lauren’s chest so heavily it sort of takes her breath away. But gasping for air could scare Camila off, so she lets her lungs burn.

“Do you remember that time we walked home from school together, right before summer break? You tried to tell me something your mom had said, about—” Camila pauses. “About girls kissing other girls.”

Lauren doesn’t say anything, terrified that anything she does or says will make Camila explode, but the frantic beating of her heart against her ribs is almost loud enough to be heard. She’s so used to Camila running away, that she has no idea what to do when Camila doesn’t.

“I was _so mad_ when you said that, because it meant that you told your mom our biggest secret. But you never meant to hurt me, did you? You were just looking out for me, and I—I was too scared to even _consider_ that you might be right.”

Camila’s shoulders are tense and her breaths are coming out in quick, short spurts, and even from the back it looks like her legs are about to give out. Lauren wants to step forward and catch her, but by now she knows that that is something Camila needs to do herself.

Camila turns around then, tears in her eyes and a sad tilt of her lips. “I’m still scared, Lauren.”

“I know,” Lauren says, gaze meeting Camila’s. “It’s okay to be scared. I’m scared, too. But sometimes things are more important than whether society accepts you or not, because if you keep running away, at some point people will stop trying to catch up.”

Camila’s eyes pierce into Lauren’s, but neither of them moves. They’re on opposite sides of the room, staring at each other, and as much as Lauren wants to wrap her arms around Camila, she knows this is not the time.

Talking has always been hard for them, and touching makes talking impossible.

“And by ‘people’ you mean ‘you’,” Camila says, softly.

Lauren shakes her head. “No. I promised, didn’t I? Forever.”

Camila stares for a moment, a twitch in the corner of her mouth hinting at a smile. “We were six.”

“I don’t care. I made a promise, and I’ve spent years keeping that promise. I’m not about to break it any time soon.” Lauren’s voice is shaking and she wants to look away, but she keeps her eyes on Camila. “I know it’s been messy and it’s been hard and neither of us deserved any of this, but—”

“I love you,” Camila blurts out, eyes widening as the words leave her mouth. She stumbles backwards, and her knees finally buckle hard enough for her to sink to the ground, burying her face in her hands.

Lauren’s frozen, but only for a moment. As soon as Camila starts to cry, she flies across the room to kneel next to her. She reaches out, ready to pull Camila into a hug, but hesitates before her hands touch Camila’s shoulders.

Camila looks up then, tear-stained and trembling. Before Lauren knows what’s happening, Camila moves closer and presses her lips against Lauren’s, wrapping her arms around her neck and pulling her into the kiss.

Lauren gasps into Camila’s mouth, melting into her as soon as she realizes that maybe this is what Camila needs right now. “I love you, too,” she breathes, her voice so low she can barely hear herself.

But Camila does, because her sobs go quiet and turn into a soft whimpering, and a string of words that sound a lot like, “Oh my god, I’m in love with you.”

And Lauren feels her heart skip a beat, because she’s been waiting to hear these words since she was six years old and didn’t even know what it meant to be in love. Because for years this love was associated with pain instead of happiness. Because even though she feels Camila’s tears on her own face and her chest tighten every time Camila lets out another sob, this is the closest she’s been to true happiness in years.

They somehow move from kissing to hugging, Lauren’s hand rubbing up and down Camila’s back until they both stop crying.

“I’m sorry,” Camila whispers when they’re both sitting with their backs against the wall, facing Camila’s bedroom.

Lauren looks down at where they’re holding hands, her heart finally calm enough to make her realize that, yes, this is really happening. She gives Camila’s hand a squeeze and leans into her a little, still not used to how Camila doesn’t tense up or pull away.

“I’m not,” she says. “And you shouldn’t, either. You’re allowed to feel whatever you’re feeling. Your feelings are valid and completely relevant, and you shouldn’t try to run away from them, because they’re part of you. And I’m in love with you. All of you.”

Her voice doesn’t shake when she tells her, her hands don’t tremble when she turns to look at Camila, and Camila doesn’t pull away when she cups her face and kisses her.

 

Things sort of seem to fall into place after that. Lauren finds herself looking forward to lunch break instead of dreading it, and she no longer has to pretend not to know when Camila has after-school band rehearsals—it’s pretty much essential knowledge now that they walk home together almost every day. (Camila also knows when Lauren has softball practice, which she admits with a shade of deep red on her cheeks.)

Lauren likes waiting outside the music room on days she doesn’t have practice, and Camila seems to have claimed a permanent seat on the bleachers, but sometimes they have practice at the same time. Like today.

Every now and then Lauren’s eyes shift to the bleachers in case Camila’s finished early, which is why she spots Ashley first. For a moment she considers not telling Keana, because it’s been a while since she’s seen Keana smile like this, but then she decides that she has no right keeping that kind of information from one of her best friends.

“Ash is here,” she says, catching the ball Keana threw her way in her glove. “She looks upset.”

Keana’s head snaps up and she looks over her shoulder, and even from a distance Lauren can see her nostrils flare. “We got into a fight last night. I said I was worried about how we wanted different things, and she flipped shit on me. I’m really _not_ in the mood for this right now. Can we just pretend she’s not here?”

Lauren’s eyes flicker back to where Ashley is sitting with hunched shoulders and a sad look on her face. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Keana exhales sharply, taking a few steps backwards. “Come on, throw me the ball.”

Lauren blinks and tries to refocus on softball practice, but she can almost feel Ashley’s eyes on her, and her throw is sloppy. Keana is talented, though, and she manages to catch it low to the ground.

She gives Lauren a tired smile. “Don’t worry about my relationship, Lo. I’ll talk to her at the end of practice, just—I just want to not think about it for, like, one hour.”

“Okay,” Lauren nods. “You’re right, it’s none of my business.”

Keana swings her arm back and throws the ball with such force Lauren has a hard time believing she won’t think about Ashley during practice, but she shakes her head and jumps up to catch the ball in her glove. As much as she’s invested in her friends’ relationship, it’s not her place to judge about communication problems, especially considering her own track record.

Lauren spends the rest of practice pretending not to notice the fire burning behind Keana’s eyes, and apologizing to the freshman that almost gets a ball in her face when Keana throws it back to Lauren with more aggression than necessary.

Somewhere near the end, Camila appears on the bleachers next to Ashley, seemingly out of nowhere. Lauren almost stumbles when she sees her, her body wanting to go up there and be closer to Camila _now_ , and when she recovers she sees Camila grinning at her.

Lauren can’t really help but smile back, giving Camila a small wave before she’s up for batting. She’s not sure if it’s easier to play with Camila present or if it’s just dumb luck, but she manages to get the third base before the ball is back with the pitcher. Ashley and Camila are cheering for her when she makes it back to the home base when the next player is on bat, and she raises her arms like she would if it were a homerun.

After the practice game is over, Camila skips down the steps and leans her elbows on the fence separating the bleachers and the softball field, and Lauren has to remind herself that they’re in public and it’s not okay to kiss Camila right now.

“Hey,” Lauren says, hopping on the fence next to Camila. “How was band practice?”

“Fun. I got to sing,” Camila smiles. She glances to her right, where Keana has hopped over the fence to talk to Ashley. “What’s up with them?”

Lauren bites her lip, subconsciously scooting a little closer to Camila. Keana’s aggressive play clearly didn’t help solve her feelings, because she’s talking with excessive hand gestures and Lauren can almost make out what she’s saying word for word. She doesn’t want to eavesdrop on her friends, though, focusing back on Camila instead. “They’re solving an argument.”

Camila glances over her shoulder again. “It doesn’t look like they’re really solving anything.”

“They will,” Lauren says. “They’re Keana and Ashley. They’ll be okay.”

Camila gives her a soft smile, fingertips brushing Lauren’s hand for a moment. “You know it’ll be okay if they don’t right? Sometimes people break up for a reason, and it’s better that way.”

“No—I mean, yeah. But they’ll be fine.” Lauren pulls her hand away from Camila, eyes flickering back to where Ashley is speaking in some kind of yell-whisper, and Keana looks like she wants to cry. “They have to.”

Camila frowns. “Lo—”

“No, don’t,” Lauren snaps, hopping off the fence. “I have to help clean up. You don’t have to wait for me if you want to go home.” She doesn’t wait to hear Camila’s reply, and she doesn’t turn around to look if Camila’s leaving.

Her heart is hammering inside her chest, and there’s a strange twist in her gut that makes her want to throw up. Camila doesn’t understand. Keana and Ashley aren’t just Lauren’s friends, they’re the people that helped her grow and accept herself. Despite everything the world put them through—from teasing to catcalling to making them hesitant to _hold hands_ —they stayed together and in love. And if they break up, it would all have been for nothing. Sort of.

And maybe it’s selfish and rude, and Lauren knows she should be more invested in her friends’ well-being than the fact that their relationship might be ending soon, but she can’t help feeling like some part of her own relationship depends on that.

Keana and Ashley, but mostly Keana, have felt like such a big part of Lauren’s life, of the reason she is where she is today, that she can’t even imagine what it would be like to tiptoe around them or be forced to choose sides or just not have them there to give her some normalcy in her life—where two girls kiss before her, hold hands, and show each other love, and nothing crumbles because of it. Which, yeah, there’s girls kissing on TV sometimes, but it’s not the same.

Because on good days, they’ll all be walking on the street together, and Keana and Ashley will hold hands or have their arms wrapped around each other’s waist, and no one cares. People passing by don’t turn their head to take a second look, their friends are all fine with it, and the fact that they’re two girls doesn’t even matter. On good days, Lauren won’t have to think about how much she’s in love with a girl and how that’s different from being in love with a boy, because the norm has already been set within her group. On good days, Lauren forgets that the words ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ even exist, because love is love.

She probably wouldn’t ever get these good days if it weren’t for Keana and Ashley. She would get something on her TV every now and again, something that would make her gut twist, something she’d never feel comfortable discussing with anyone the other day because she wasn’t sure what the reaction would be. Maybe sometimes she’d see some girls on the mall that would make her do a double take before hurriedly moving on out of some kind of fear of being noticed. But that would be it. Them missing from Lauren’s life would’ve changed so much, that Lauren doesn’t even like thinking about it.

Lauren tells herself her hands are trembling because of the pressure she put on them during practice, and she ignores the way her stomach flips when Keana raises her voice on the bleachers.

She stays on the field until there’s nothing left to do, and when she returns from the locker room with her stuff, Camila is still waiting for her. She gives Lauren a careful smile, jumping up from where she’d been sitting on the bleachers. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah.” Lauren glances at Keana and Ashley, tries to make out what they’re saying, but they’ve lowered their voices. At least they’re no longer shouting at each other nor making wild hand gestures. It calms Lauren’s heart a little, and she lets out a quiet breath before following Camila out of the field.

 

The walk home is filled with silence that weighs heavy between them, and for the first time Lauren doesn’t want Camila to say anything. Maybe it’s none of Lauren’s business what Keana and Ashley do with their relationship, but that doesn’t mean that she won’t—that she _doesn’t_ —feel affected.

Camila walks a few steps behind her until they’re turning the corner to the last block home, when she fastens her pace and brushes Lauren’s hand in passing. “Hey, are you okay?”

Lauren looks up before averting her gaze and shrugging. “I guess.”

“Lo…” Camila mumbles. She spins around to face Lauren, obvious worry written all over her face. “You know our relationship doesn’t have anything to do with Keana and Ashley, right? I mean… If they break up it doesn’t mean that things are gonna go bad for us. I know it’s hard to see them fighting, but they’re them, and we’re us. It’s nice to have them as, like, an example, but this is something _we_ have to do, you know?”

“How did you—” Lauren runs her hand through her hair, shaking her head.

“I know you,” Camila says with a small smile. “And they’re an example for me, too. Having them around helps make me feel normal—make the way I feel feel normal, you know? So I figured it’s like that for you, too. And when you had such an intense reaction to them fighting, well, I just put the pieces together and figured I was right.”

They reach Camila’s front porch, and Camila gently wraps her fingers around Lauren’s wrist, pulling her down so they can sit next to each other. “You’re not wrong for feeling this way. Someone really smart once told me that feelings are always valid.” She tilts her head to meet Lauren’s gaze and smiles softly. “I think it’s time for you to start taking your own advice. You’re allowed to be upset about changes, but you have to actually let yourself be upset and look past those first obvious reasons. Figure out _why_ it’s affecting you so much, and... deal with it.” Camila looks at Lauren with kind eyes, fingers playing with the rings on Lauren’s hand while she speaks. “Just—I’ve spent so much time thinking my feelings were wrong. I don’t want you to think you’re wrong for feeling some type of way about anything.”

Lauren’s tongue feels heavy and tears are threatening to well up in her eyes. She’s so used to chasing after Camila that she doesn’t really know what to do when she’s _here_. There’s something particularly painful about that realization, but she forces herself to focus on how tenderly Camila is looking at her right now.

“You’re right,” Lauren sighs. She glances around them to see if anyone’s out on the street, and when she sees there’s no one, she leans her head on Camila’s shoulder. “Sorry for being an ass.”

Camila hesitates, then wraps her arm around Lauren’s waist, pulling her closer. “You’re fine.” And then, “I’m sorry for being an even bigger ass.”

Lauren almost smiles into Camila’s shoulder, her chest no longer as tight. “I don’t know why I’m still in love with you.”

Camila sighs almost inaudibly, pressing a soft kiss against the side of Lauren’s head. “Me either, but I’m really glad you are.”

“You have to say it back,” Lauren whispers, wrapping her arms around Camila’s waist as an alternative to kissing her. “It’s, like, a thing.”

“I’m in love with you,” Camila says, almost immediately. “I’ve always been in love with you.”

Something about the way she doesn’t hesitate, pulling Lauren closer instead, makes Lauren’s heart trip and stumble inside her chest, because this must be what it’s like to be loved back.

 

Lauren is on her back on her bed with Camila on top of her, shivering under the soft touch of Camila’s fingertips. For once there’s no fear in Camila’s eyes when she looks up to meet Lauren’s gaze, her lips pressing against Lauren’s jaw, and it’s strange and uncommon, but Lauren really likes it.

They haven’t gone further than making out yet, which is fine, in a way. Lauren is in no rush. Like, they took years to get to kissing without Camila running away and Lauren’s hands trembling, so there’s no point in rushing things now.

And yeah, Lauren is attracted to Camila—like, duh. Camila’s super pretty, and sometimes she does that thing where she’ll blink or bite her lip, and it’ll make Lauren feel some type of way deep inside. But maybe it’s just because Lauren knows Camila isn’t going to run anymore, that she doesn’t have to be scared to have her heart broken at any given moment anymore. It’s enough for now.

Lauren grips at Camila’s waist to flip them around, but Camila smirks against her mouth and hums something along the lines of, “No.”

“Camz,” Lauren whines, but she doesn’t put in more effort. She smiles and leans up to kiss Camila’s lips again. “Hmm. Can I ask you something?”

Camila blinks and sits up, thighs still bracketing Lauren’s. There’s something unidentifiable in her eyes, but she doesn’t say no and she doesn’t try to push Lauren away, so Lauren figures it’s okay. She keeps her gaze locked on Camila, though, to see when Camila freezes so she’ll know when to stop.

“Okay, really weird question, but, um, did you have sex with Austin?” Lauren blurts out all at once, before she can change her mind.

Camila does freeze then, her hands stilling where they’d been playing with the hem of Lauren’s shirt. She takes a shaky breath, then nods. “Once.” She looks away, a sort of grin playing on her lips. “In the back of his car. I don’t know why we thought that was romantic, but yeah.”

Lauren stares up at Camila, unsure whether it’s okay to smile or laugh or react in any way that isn’t tense and dramatic. Camila rolls off of Lauren and props her head up on her arm. Her fingertips trace the outline of Lauren’s hipbone, and one corner of her mouth tilts upward. “What about you?”

“Uh,” Lauren breathes, mind completely blank except for how much she wants to kiss Camila right now. “I mean, yeah. Also once.”

Camila doesn’t really reply to that. She nods again, and then leans forward to catch Lauren’s lips between her own. Then she sits up and runs her hand through her hair, an unsure smile on her lips. “I’m not going to run away just because you ask some personal questions anymore, Lo. I spent too long trying to ignore everything that made me terrified of loving you, but I’m done with that. I’m done running. Like, yeah, I’m still sort of terrified, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be there for you. I understand if you have a hard time trusting me, and I won’t push you or anything, but I’m making the conscious decision to stay here and try—even if it scares the shit out of me.”

Camila’s words feel a little like someone pulled the white hot knife from between Lauren’s ribs, because—holy shit, she never truly realized it before, but Camila’s right. Lauren doesn’t trust her. She stopped trusting her the moment Camila didn’t fight back against Dinah’s words. She stopped trusting Camila when she decided that fear was going to determine the way their lives were gonna go. Lauren spent almost half her life fighting against feelings for someone she didn’t dare to trust, and suddenly it all makes sense.

“Oh,” she says. It comes out softly, like a whisper and a breath in one, and she doesn’t know how to follow it up. There’s a pull in her chest and something heavy weighing down her tongue, and when she tries to swallow it it doesn’t go away.

Camila is still looking at her with dark eyes and a look that’s too understanding, and Lauren almost wants to cry. She scrambles up, straightens her shirt. She knows why Camila only wanted to kiss before—kissing is easy. Kissing means no thinking, and no thinking means no talking.

She turns around to face Camila, arms folded over her chest, like a shield protecting her heart. “You’re right. I don’t—I _want_ to trust you. But—” Her voice trails off. “You know?”

Camila’s jaw clenches and pain flickers in her eyes. “Yeah.”

Lauren looks at her, then, and it almost feels like it’s the first time she’s really looking at _Camila_. There are no walls up between them, no poison waiting to be spilled from her tongue and no fire in her eyes. There’s only Camila, feelings of guilt and love and fear and anger written all over her face, and, in a way, it’s beautiful.

Lauren leans forward to wrap her hands around Camila, and a twinge of guilt flares up when Camila tenses for even just one second, but she puts on a tiny smile of bravery. “We’ll work through it together. If there’s anything I’ve learned from the past few years it’s that you can’t force anything, but eventually things go the way they’re supposed to go.”

Camila nods, her hands warm against Lauren’s palms. “Together. I like the sound of that.”

 

Keana and Ashley break up a few days later. Keana calls Lauren late at night with the news, and Lauren has to remind herself that it’s a school day and that she can’t go to Keana’s house in the middle of the night.

It sucks, because Lauren is friends with both Keana and Ashley, and she doesn’t know whose side she’s on because the breakup was mutual. It sucks, because Keana looks paler than a ghost for the next couple of days and Lauren is pretty sure she hasn’t been eating well either. It sucks, because that’s what breakups do.

Lauren tiptoes around Keana for a week, cracking stupid jokes every now and then to see if she can make her smile, but her effort goes to waste when it ends up in a crying session instead. And while she’s holding her best friend, Lauren briefly wonders whether this is how everyone else felt around her and Camila when they were still unable to breathe around each other without feeling like the world was gonna end.

 

Lauren wants Camila to be her girlfriend. Like, she’s always wanted Camila to be her girlfriend, but she wants it on a whole other level now. Because having a label on their relationship feels like security—like it’ll somehow make it harder for Camila to run away.

And, if she’s being completely honest, it wouldn’t change much. They already act like they’re in a relationship; movie nights (and Lauren falling asleep halfway through) occur at least once a week, and they always have these short little moments full of smiles and butterflies when they pass each other in the hallways at school. It wouldn’t be an upgrade, just a label.

She says that, but she can’t lie that it would bring something more to the table. Like, just the thought that if some random person hits on her, she could say, “I have a girlfriend”, and mean it… that matters. It matters to Lauren, at least. Even if just a little bit—like it would help cement the fact that they’re real; that they exist outside of stolen moments in the privacy of their rooms. That even if others don’t know, _they’d_ know.

Labels are defining, though, and Lauren doesn’t know whether Camila is ready for that. She doesn’t know whether _she_ is ready for that. But she can’t stop thinking about how it would feel to have Camila as her girlfriend, to have it be _official_.

So one day when they’re in Lauren’s room doing homework together, she takes a leap of faith. “Camz?”

Camila holds her hand up as she scribbles something down in her notebook, looking up when she’s done. “What’s up?”

“I want to take you out on a date,” Lauren blurts, awfully aware of how none of it sounds the way she imagined it to sound; there’s no romantic lilt to her voice and all the words string messily together into one.

Camila doesn’t move for a moment or two, and Lauren almost takes it all back, tells her that it was a joke and that she didn’t mean anything by it. But then Camila’s lips curl up into a smile, and she puts her pen down. “Yeah? Where to?”

Lauren’s eyes widen and she almost can’t contain a squeal of happiness, because she didn’t fuck it up. And, because— _finally_. “I don’t know. Anywhere. I just want to, like, go on a date with you.”

Camila’s smile turns teasing, and she frowns playfully. “People generally have an idea for a date before they ask someone to go with them.”

“I didn’t think that far ahead,” Lauren admits. “I wasn’t sure if you were gonna say yes, since dates are usually, you know, in public.”

Camila’s smile falters, but only slightly, and she recollects herself almost just as quickly. “Of course I’m gonna say yes. I promised I’d try, right? I fully intent on keeping that promise.” She reaches over the table to wrap her fingers around Lauren’s, soft and gentle.

Lauren swallows, a twist of guilt suddenly making itself known in her chest, and she lets out a shaky breath. “I’ll think of something fun to do.”

“No roller skating,” Camila says, voice stern but with joy in her eyes.

“No,” Lauren smiles. “No skating or anything that’ll require you needing to keep your balance. We don’t want to end the night in the ER.”

Camila rolls her eyes and she picks up her pen again to continue her homework, but she doesn’t remove her left hand from Lauren’s, index finger drawing small circles on the palm instead.

The motion sends tingles all the way up Lauren’s arm, making it hard to focus on the book in front of her. Her gaze flickers up to Camila’s face—the slight frown of her eyebrows, the downwards tilt of her lips, the focused look in her eyes as they scan the pages of her book.

She’s enthralling, filling Lauren’s chest with a jittery warmth that slowly spreads to every cell of her body, closing up her throat and causing her heart to hammer against her ribs.

Camila’s hand stills in Lauren’s, and she raises her gaze to meet Lauren’s. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Like what?”

Camila blinks. “Like I’m made of gold.”

“You’re more beautiful than gold,” Lauren says, somehow keeping her voice from shaking. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” Camila breathes with a single shake of her head. “Never.”

Lauren tries to ignore the raging nerves in her stomach as she walks up to Camila’s front door. They agreed on not telling their parents they’re going on a date, but she knows it’s pretty obvious that they’re going _somewhere_ —she even put on extra nice clothes and an added layer of makeup. She even got her mom to lend her that one red lipstick that puts the focus on her lips. (Although, if everything goes right, Camila’s focus will be there anyway.)

There’s still a part of her that doesn’t believe this is really happening; she’s really taking Camila on a date. A few years overdue, maybe, but she’ll take anything she can get now.

Once she reaches the doorstep, Lauren takes a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm her nerves. It’s just Camila, right? Lauren doesn’t have to impress her and try to get her to fall in love with her. But still. It’s _Camila_.

Lauren rings the bell with shaking hands, her heart in her throat.

A new sort of nervousness takes over when the door opens, revealing Camila in a pair of dark wash skinny jeans and a shirt with a minimalistic cat printed on the front. Her makeup is touched up like Lauren’s, and she lets out a shaky breath when they lock eyes.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” Lauren breathes. She’s momentarily distracted by Camila’s smile, eyes stuck to the sight for a beat too long, before regaining her manners. “Are you ready to go?”

Camila smiles. “Yeah. Hold on. Just gotta grab a jacket.” She disappears up the stairs while Lauren waits in the doorway. It’s sort of awkward, but at the same time it’s exciting because this is how dates work. You don’t barge into someone’s house, even if you’ve been coming over your entire life, but wait for them at the door.

The only thing missing is—

“Lauren.” Camila’s father sticks his head around the corner and grins at her. “I thought I recognized your voice. Are you gonna make sure Camila gets home safe after the party?”

Lauren blinks. Oh—right. They told their parents they were going to a party. Lauren sort of wanted to tell her mom she was finally taking Camila on a date, but for the sake of protecting Camila’s still-in-the-closet thing, she just went along with whatever Camila had come up with.

“I’ll deliver her right back at this doorstep,” Lauren nods. “No need to worry about her.”

Camila’s dad steps into the hallway. “Not nearly as much if she was going with anyone else. I know you’ll take good care of her. Sinu and I were talking earlier, about how glad we are that you two are friends again. We missed having you around, and Camila is a lot happier lately.”

“I’m glad about it, too,” Lauren smiles. She wonders what Camila said about her in the past few years, what reasons she gave for the break in their friendship. Both her own parents knew the real reason almost from the start, and Chris and Taylor were too young to really care, but she’s pretty certain Camila was still keeping the truth a secret.

Before she can say anything else, Camila comes rushing down the stairs with a bag slung over her shoulder and her phone in her hand. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“No alcohol,” Camila’s dad says. “I don’t care about what other people do—it’s not as cool as everyone says it is anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Camila grins, giving her father a one-armed hug. “We’re leaving now. Bye!”

Lauren leads Camila to the car—her mom’s, since she doesn’t have her own car yet—and holds open the door to the passenger’s seat with a serious look in her eyes. “Are you excited?”

“Hell yeah,” Camila says, putting her hand on Lauren’s over the console. “I’m still not used to seeing you drive, though. Try not to kill us.”

“Have a little faith in me,” Lauren huffs, starting the engine. She puts the car in drive and makes a point of checking all the mirrors before putting on her blinker and steering the car onto the road. “I’ve been driving around for over six months, it’s totally safe.”

“If I die tonight it’s your fault,” Camila says, but she relaxes and leans back into the car seat. “You didn’t forget the tickets, did you?”

Lauren shakes her head with a grin, squeezing Camila’s hand before putting on on the steering wheel to make a turn. “You’re the disorganized one, remember? I’m not gonna fuck up my only chance at a great first date with you.”

When Camila doesn’t reply, Lauren glances at her, catching dark eyes and a nervous smile. She feels a wave of anxiety in her stomach, hovering her hand over Camila’s. “Hey, what do you have in that head of yours?”

“Just you,” Camila says, softly. She reaches up to tangle her fingers with Lauren’s, relaxing her shoulders. “I’ve been wanting to go on a date with you for as long as I can remember.”

“Oh.” Lauren’s eyes widen, and she has to force herself to keep her eyes on the road and not get distracted by Camila and drive into a wall. “That’s a long time. Way to put pressure on me, Camz.”

Camila lets out a laugh, raising their joint hands to her lips to press a kiss to Lauren’s fingers. “You’re taking me to a concert—you’ve already passed the test, _and_ automatically win the prize for best first date ever.”

Lauren is still not used to Camila showing her admiration so openly, and while she’s glad things are going this well, she still finds herself being hesitant every now and then. For years she’s made every move with caution, and not having to do that anymore is almost uncomfortable at times. There’s a safety in hiding, though she wouldn’t trade any of this for that fake sense of control.

They arrive at the venue thirty minutes before the concert is supposed to start. It’s a local and unknown band, but Lauren listened to some of their songs on YouTube before purchasing the tickets, and it’s almost exactly the type of music she and Camila listen to sometimes.

There are a few people hanging around the venue, smoking a cigarette or drinking beer straight from the bottle, and Camila and Lauren inch closer together as they pass them on their way inside. Lauren shows their tickets to the security person at the door, and **t** hey get blue wristbands with the word ‘underage’ printed on them. When they get inside the mood is a lot better than the one outside.

Most of the people are around their age or a few years older, and while the concert hasn’t started yet there’s music playing from the speakers and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Lauren asks, letting her hand hover protectively over the small of Camila’s back. She’s not too sure about how much they’re going to show affection tonight, already having decided to let Camila set the pace, but she doesn’t want people to think either of them are approachable.

“Sure,” Camila nods. Lauren leads them to the bar and orders two diet cokes, silently wishing she could try the blue cocktail one of the other customers orders.

“I feel young,” Camila says a few moments later, when they found a good spot to see the stage and not get their ears blasted off by the speakers. “Everyone here is like twenty.”

Lauren gives her a teasing grin. “That’s because we listen to cool music instead of lame pop music everyone of our age listens to.”

“Did you just call One Direction lame pop music?” Camila gasps, pretending to be offended. She shakes her head with a sigh, but her eyes are glistening and there’s a smile tugging at her lips.

“No, but I couldn’t exactly get you One Direction tickets a week before we’re supposed to go on a date. Like, you gotta buy that shit at least a year in advance with a lot of stress and four laptops open to have a bigger chance of getting through the queue,” Lauren shrugs. “And it’s not like you don’t already have tickets for their upcoming concert here, so that would’ve been a waste of time and money.”

Camila seems to consider this, then shrugs. “I’m expecting tickets next year.”

“I’ll think about it.”

When the music starts, Lauren instinctively moves closer to Camila, wrapping her arm around her waist. Camila stiffens at first, glancing around the room, but then relaxes and leans into Lauren.

Lauren’s heart starts hammering so hard her chest feels tight, and for the first time it’s a feeling she doesn’t want to lose.

 

Lauren kisses Camila in the bathroom after the concert, during a quiet moment when it’s just the two of them. Their lips brush and Camila takes a sharp breath, and then it’s over.

But Lauren didn’t want to go on a date with the girl she’s been in love with for most of her life without kissing her at least once, so she’s content.

She kisses Camila again when they’re parked on her driveway, surrounded by silence and darkness. She really kisses her this time—with tongue and gasps and fingers hooking into belt loops. Camila kisses her back just as hard, and Lauren feels like the world’s stopped spinning and everyone around them has disappeared. In that moment, there is nothing outside the car, and nothing matters except the two of them.

“Camz,” Lauren breathes into Camila’s mouth. Her stomach flips and there’s a slight tremble ~~in~~ to her hands, but she keeps her voice steady and confident. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

Camila doesn’t freeze. She doesn’t push Lauren’s hands away. She doesn’t suddenly hurry out of the car without a real excuse. She reaches up to Lauren’s cheeks with both of her hands. She presses her lips against Lauren’s mouth again. She nods. “Yeah,” she whispers. “I’d like that.”

Lauren can barely hide her smile—though, admittedly, she doesn’t really give it a try to begin with. She deepens their kiss with a soft hum, grinning when Camila immediately pulls her closer by the base of her neck, and she mumbles something along the lines of, “I love you.”

 

Lauren tries not to tell anyone. Camila didn’t really ask her not to, but Lauren knows it would be moving too fast. Considering that it took them five years to even admit their feelings to each other, plus at least another six months before making things official, she knows they’re the type of couple that moves slowly, without haste.

She tries not to tell anyone, but when her mom asks why she’s been glowing for over a week, she just blurts it out.

She tells her mom about the past months, and their date, and how they’re girlfriends now. She tells her about the way Camila makes her feel, still after all these years. She tells her about how she falls for Camila all over again every time she sees her.

Her mom laughs and looks a little like she’s going to cry when she pulls Lauren into a tight embrace and makes sure to emphasize how happy and supportive she is. Lauren really does cry, though it’s nothing but from sheer happiness this time around—and because she’s been holding in all these feelings for so long now, and she finally gets to express them the way she’s been longing to do for years.

She still feels weird about being this open about her feelings for Camila and their relationship as a whole, but it’s almost a good different. They’re working on it, Camila still hasn’t ran away, and Lauren’s heart has never been this far from broken.

And Lauren is really starting to let herself believe that this is real—that Camila won’t run anymore. She’s stopped kissing Camila like it might be the last time, and she catches herself staring at her just to admire how beautiful she is rather than try to figure out whether she’s thinking about leaving.

There’s no longer that old twinge of anxiety laced in her voice every time she whispers Camila’s name, and she allows herself to start thinking about how they’re going to make sure they will be the ones surviving the distance when Lauren leaves for college next year, because she believes they’ll still be together by then.

She also ends up telling Normani, because Normani is her best friend and Camila was fine with it when Lauren asked. Normani reacts pretty much like Lauren expected her to—with a lot of _finally_ and _I’m really proud of you_. She also promises not to tell anyone—not even Ally, who has sort of been the other half of Lauren’s support system for almost as long as Normani has—because she understands that Lauren wants to make sure Camila’s involved in telling everyone else, and Camila just isn’t ready for that yet.

It’s fine that Camila isn’t ready yet—Lauren has time. She can wait, now that things are the way they are. They’re heading towards the start of summer, and there’s no reason to hurry anything. Camila is her girlfriend whether people know about it or not, and if this is the best way to keep her, Lauren happily obliges.

 

Summer break is different. Lauren’s about to start her senior year, and that means getting to work on her college applications.

She was supposed to be working on them with Keana and Normani, since they were all in the same boat, but they figured out soon enough that the three of them together was just way too much stress and anxiety put together. Plus, they would invariably end up comparing their choices and getting stuck on noticing the glaring possibility of each of them ending up in a different college next year, possibly states apart from each other, which was just too depressing to think of when they’re trying to write their essays.

So instead of doing that, Lauren ends up at her kitchen table more than once with each of her parents, sorting through papers, re-reading her essays out loud and frowning at financial aid paperwork until her mother runs a soothing hand down her arm and helps her understand it.

Either that, or holed up in her room with Camila pressed to her side and convincing her that she should actually relax once in a while or she’s going to drive both of them crazy.

Which.

Somewhere along the way Camila has sort of become Lauren’s rock. She’s there, for everything—makes a point of doing so, even when Lauren’s stressed and sitting in bed surrounded by countless essay drafts, even when Lauren burns awake through the night and is too sleepy the next day to do anything but snuggle with her instead of actually doing something.

She reads over Lauren’s drafts, offers constructive criticism or just pure support, distracts her from it all when Lauren doesn’t realize she needs it, and is basically the best girlfriend Lauren could have ever asked for.

There’s this thrill that goes through Lauren sometimes, when she can look over and see Camila _there_. It’s just the fact that she can reach over and touch Camila—even if just a brush of hands, when they’re surrounded by people who aren’t intimate to what they are. It’s in how Camila will invariably look back at her with this twinkle in her eyes, one that just confirms that she’s Lauren’s. Camila is Lauren’s, and Lauren is hers.

 

Camila seems to be growing sloppy.

They still go on dates, just the two of them. It makes Lauren feel giddy, still, to be able to take her girlfriend out, even if it’s just to watch a movie or get some pizza. It feels great when they’re alone, when they can be in a nearly empty movie theater room and they feel comfortable enough for Camila to press into Lauren and pull her into a kiss. It feels like they’re just teenagers who are dating and can fool around like that without any worries.

But then there’s those times when they go out in groups—when there’s a consensus that Lauren, Keana and Normani need a break from focusing on prospective colleges. When they’re hanging out in Keana’s backyard, and Camila sometimes doesn’t pull away after a graze of her hand against Lauren’s.

It made Lauren confused and jumpy the first time it happened, because Dinah and Keana were a few feet away, and Camila was holding on to her hand, and Lauren wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do—but when she looked over, Camila was lazing under the sun with an arm thrown over her eyes, looking as content as ever, so Lauren just bit back her smile and ran her thumb over Camila’s knuckles.

But then it keeps happening. Camila presses into her side when they’re watching a movie with Sofi and Camila’s mom, and doesn’t pull away until she needs to get up to go to the bathroom. Camila intertwines her fingers with Lauren’s when Lauren comes over to spend some time together and drags her upstairs without a second glance to her parents, closing the door behind herself before pressing Lauren against it and shushing Lauren’s concerns that they’re not alone in the house.

She keeps doing these things, and Lauren keeps letting her, because it makes her feel wanted, and because she figures Camila knows what she’s doing and what she’s comfortable with more than Lauren does.

Lauren eventually finds out how wrong she was in ever thinking that all of it was Camila growing sloppy. She should’ve known better, really, with how great Camila’s always been with keeping hidden the things she wants to be kept that way, but when she thinks about it, Lauren is pretty sure she just didn’t think anything else was even an option yet **.**

“I want to tell them,” is what Camila says, her face tucked into the curve of Lauren’s neck as they laze around in Camila’s bed one night. “They’re my parents. I just. I need to do it.”

Lauren doesn’t ask if she’s sure. She knows Camila wouldn’t even be saying it out loud if she wasn’t—she might be terrified, but she probably knows she wants this. Instead of questioning it, Lauren tightens her hold on her and presses a kiss to the top of her head.

“Could you—could you be there, maybe? Like, not _there_ , there. I think I need to do this myself, but… maybe you could just be here? If they take it badly you can help me pack my bags,” Camila jokes weakly, and Lauren tuts.

“You won’t be packing any bags unless it’s to visit me once I’m in college,” Lauren assures her. “They love you, Camz.”

Lauren doesn’t promise her anything about her parents’ reactions, because she has no way of knowing. She realizes even she herself is getting a twinge of anxiety thinking about the _what if_ , but she can’t honestly get herself to believe Camila’s parents would ever react that badly.

They wouldn’t.

Right?

“Yeah, I know,” Camila murmurs, and Lauren thinks she’s probably thinking of the same _what if_ that Lauren is.

“Of course I’ll be here, you know that. Whatever you need, Camz,” Lauren whispers as she hugs Camila to herself.

She can feel Camila’s smile against her neck for a moment, and when she speaks then, her breath makes Lauren shiver. “Whatever I need?”

“Y-yeah,” Lauren stutters, because now Camila is raking her teeth lightly against her skin, and she wouldn’t be able to keep her voice steady if she wanted to.

It doesn’t matter much anyway, because soon enough Camila is pressing her mouth to hers, and Lauren’s mind goes blank.

It’s something about how heavy Camila’s voice had just sounded, the innuendo she left in the air, combined with the way she licks into Lauren’s mouth and how tightly she presses herself to Lauren... All of that combined turns Lauren into mush; an overheated, overeager, excited, miserable pile of mush, pinned under Camila to the bed.

There’s this excitement that hangs around them—something that sparks in Camila’s eyes when she pulls back from a kiss to look down at Lauren, something in the tremble of Lauren’s hands when she reaches up to tuck Camila’s hair behind her ears.

It’s like—they’re not impulsive people. Not when it comes to this, not when it comes to them. But when Camila bites on her lip and reaches down for the hem of Lauren’s top, sliding her hands under it to run them over Lauren’s stomach, Lauren’s never wanted to throw caution to the wind this much in her entire life.

And Camila seems to be on the same page, because she shushes Lauren when Lauren whispers her name, carefully, voice trembling, because she still wants to make sure Camila is alright and that she’s not about to push them too far.

But Camila shushes her, drags her top further up until they’re both taking it off, and all Lauren can do is try to remember how to breathe.

All that can be heard is the sound of their heavy breaths as they help each other undress, slowly at first, but more and more eagerly the heavier their kisses grow. A gasp, when Camila bites down on Lauren’s lip, and a giggle when her top gets stuck briefly when Lauren’s tugging it up her arms.

And it’s like. Lauren knows Camila’s body. She knows Camila’s body from when they took baths together when they were six, first of all, and from getting changed in front of each other when they were ten, and from blind groping in the dark in the past couple of weeks.

She knows the scar she traces with her fingertips on Camila’s hip, from when she fell from her bike and Lauren had to call her parents, crying, because she didn’t want Camila to hurt.

She knows the spot on Camila’s neck to kiss that makes Camila’s breath falter that slight bit, and she’s familiar with the way her curves fit against Lauren’s.

But she’s also never known all of that like _this_ —with Camila wrapped around her, the sheets a tangled mess around them as their kisses grow sloppy, skin bare to each other. It’s brand new, and kind of weird but very much perfect, and she finds herself giggling into Camila’s mouth when she realizes she’s about to be this intimate with the girl whose hair she tried to brush after they had showers together when they were kids.

Camila giggles, too, as she touches Lauren. It’s adorable, because it’s this half excited, half nervous kind of laugh, and it’s muffled by Lauren’s lips, and the giggles do eventually turn into short gasps of breath pressed against Lauren’s shoulder and neck.

But it’s those giggles that make Lauren’s chest feel light through it all. It’s the certainty that this is where they’re at right now—where their nervous and slightly unsure touches can be laughed away, rather than turned into some kind of overthought paranoia that drives them apart.

That’s what makes Lauren’s touches grow surer; it’s what has her muttering fond little nothings by Camila’s ear when Camila’s head is pressed back to the pillow and she’s biting her lip to try to muffle the moans Lauren drags out of her.

Lauren’s heart nearly bursts out of her chest when Camila is trying to catch her breath underneath her—Camila’s hair is a mess, a couple of strands sticking to her sweaty forehead, her cheeks are flushed, and her lips swollen. She looks happy, and when she runs her hand down Lauren’s arm in a soft caress she’s done countless times before, she actually laughs. Breathlessly, fondly, before pulling Lauren into a kiss that turns into another, and then another, and then Lauren’s the one trying to muffle her own gasps.

 

Camila’s downstairs with her parents, presumably making the leap of faith and stepping out of the closet, and Lauren is stuck in Camila’s bedroom trying to keep herself from dying—which sounds dramatic, sure, but with the way she feels clammy all over with anxiety, her heart racing in her chest, she thinks she’s not that far off base. She’s had a couple of days to prepare herself for this moment, ever since Camila decided to go forward with it, and yet here she is.

She pauses her pacing to look at Camila’s cat-shaped clock, the same one Camila’s had hanging on her wall since she was eight, for what feels like the millionth time today. The minute turns just as she looks over, which means it’s been exact seventeen minutes since Camila had let out an anxious breath, let go of Lauren’s hands, and gone downstairs.

She gives up on counting the time and plops down onto Camila’s bed, ears straining to try and hear any signs of altercations coming from downstair—she’s not sure if the fact she can’t hear anything is better or worse.

It feel like time’s stretched forever and over twice until there’s a scuff on the doorknob and Lauren snaps her head up to look at the door, jumping onto her feet the instant a teary eyed Camila enters the room.

“What happened?” Lauren asks, voice only half as panicked as she feels as she reaches out to pull Camila into herself. “Are you okay? How did it go?”

Camila doesn’t reply. She just hugs Lauren’s waist tightly and buries her face into the curve of Lauren’s neck, sobbing heavily and not giving any signs of stopping.

Camila cries for what feels like an eternity. Each second Lauren spends shushing her softly, each moment running her hands down Camila’s back and over her hair increases the twist in Lauren’s chest more and more until she feels like she’s swallowed lead, her own eyes filling tears she fights off as best as she can.

“You’re worrying me, Camz,” Lauren whispers eventually, pressing a kiss to Camila’s hair and hugging her tightly as she hears and feels her wet sigh against her neck.

Camila swallows audibly then, pulling back after a moment and blinking rapidly as she takes a breath and smiles shakily at Lauren when she reaches to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

Then she chuckles.

“Daddy said no more closed doors,” Camila croaks, letting out another breathless chuckle and shaking her head as Lauren blinks at her in confusion.

“He—what,” Lauren stutters, and the look of bewilderment on her face must be hilarious, because Camila laughs for real now, loudly, something Lauren wasn’t expecting given the tear stains still on her cheeks.

Camila throws her arms around Lauren’s neck this time and pulls her back into herself. “They were fine with it,” Camila says, sounding like she’s just relieved herself of a weight beyond imagination as she sighs next to Lauren’s ear. “It went fine,” she adds, voice heavier with emotion now, and Lauren feels the part of that same weight that had been weighing Camila down, the same one she’d taken over from her without even realizing it, ease out of her in one swoop breath.

That breath turns into wet chuckle of her own as she lifts Camila in her arms, hearing Camila’s squeal in her ear when she spins her around for a moment, and repeating the words that feel long overdue: “You’re okay. _We’re_ okay.”

 

Sometimes Lauren wonders: if she and Camila hadn’t had their falling out, would things be different?

She genuinely ponders on it — she wonders if in some twisted way, she has that to thank for being friends with Keana, for growing this close to Normani, for having Ally in her life.

She likes to think that even if she and Camila never pulled away from each other, if they never hurt each other that badly, she would never _not_ have these people in her life.

She can’t imagine softball without Keana, she can’t imagine not being there for Normani’s dance recitals, she can’t imagine not having Ally to text for endless stretches of times at the oddest of moments.

She likes to think that what they have is too strong for it to have ended up any other way.

That being said, she doesn’t know what to think of her and Dinah.

After she and Camila had their falling out, things just kind of settled a specific way—Normani was Lauren’s best friend, and Dinah was Camila’s. It just kinda ended up being the way it was.

Lauren doesn’t really see a problem with that—hasn’t seen in a long time—until the moment she’s leaning against her car and sipping on a lemonade beside Dinah as they wait for Camila to finish getting ready so they can head to the beach.

It’s not the standing together that does it, it’s the smile Dinah throws her as she says, “You know, I’m really happy for you guys.”

It confuses Lauren at first, which must be obvious by the furrow of her brow.

“You know,” Dinah says slowly, nudging her lightly with her shoulder. It irks Lauren, for some reason, how teasing she seems with that smile. “Walz finally told me about you guys. I’m really glad you two worked things out.”

“Yeah well,” Lauren forces out, averting her gaze and biting the straw of her lemonade. “No thanks to you.”

Silence falls between them, and Lauren lets it drag out before glancing over to find Dinah staring at her with a mix of confusion and… She actually looks _offended_. It makes Lauren scoff, which in turn makes Dinah’s frown deepen. “What?” Dinah finally says. “You think I have a problem with you two or something?”

Lauren scoffs again, crossing her arms and staring down at the ground as she sips the last of her drink loudly. It seems to irk Dinah, because she pushes away from the car to stand before Lauren instead.

“I always tried to ask Walz what happened with you two, and she’d never tell me. I was the one telling her to go and talk to you—what, you think I told her to stay away instead? What the hell, Lauren?”

“You’re going to pretend you’re not the reason that happened in the first place?” Lauren exclaims, looking up to stare at Dinah with burning eyes, all the bitterness she didn’t know she still kept to herself dripping from her every word. “ _Girls are not supposed to kiss other girls_ ,” Lauren says, voice mocking, a mirror of the words that have rung on the back of her head so many times, for so long—and undoubtedly Camila’s, too.

It makes her livid, thinking of all of that again, has her uncrossing her arms and clenching her fist next to her as she feels herself flushing under Dinah’s confused and irritated look.

“You’re the one who was fixated with the fact girls are _supposed_ to kiss _boys_ , the one who got Camila to buy into the same bullshit, and now you’re going to stand here and act—”

“What the hell are you talking about, when did I—”

“I still can’t believe you managed to royally screw everyone up at the tender age of ten,” Lauren laughs, bitterly, “must be great to come out unscathed from it, huh?”

Dinah doesn’t get to reply, but she looks like she wants to hit Lauren as much as Lauren wants to hit her when Camila steps out of her house, yelling something back to her mother as she hurries over to them.

“Hey, are you guys ready to—” Camila starts asking, breathless from running the short distance to the car, and Lauren turns away before she can cue into what was happening.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

 

Of course Camila notices something is up. It would be impossible for her not to, even if she and Lauren weren’t as honed into each other’s moods as they are.

The drive to the beach is tense, the silence filled by the radio that Lauren flicks on before gripping the steering wheel with tight hands and focusing on the road. The set of her jaw only eases slightly when Camila reaches over to rest her hand on her thigh and shoot her a concerned glance, but it’s back by the time Lauren glances at the rearview mirror to see Dinah sitting at the back with arms crossed as she stares out the window.

When they get to the beach and find Normani and Keana already sat by the sand waiting for them under a couple of beach umbrellas, the parting is instant. Lauren grabs Normani by the wrist and pulls her to a corner of the shade, motioning over to Keana to come closer, and Dinah drags Camila off for a **‘** walk **’**.

Normani frowns a lot at Lauren while she tells everything that happened, and when Lauren asks Keana about it, all she gets is a sympathetic cringe and a shrug that basically means “I feel you but you could’ve handled it better”.

Lauren just wants to forget all about it, honestly. The whole point of coming to the beach was to relax and distract themselves of the impending preoccupations of real life, not to rehash all her grudges and insecurities.

She’s feeling a lot less sure of her reaction by the time Camila and Dinah walk back, especially given Camila’s unimpressed look her way when she perks up at the sight of her. She’s probably not going to get the chance to get Camila far enough into the water that she could sneak in some underwater groping.

Keana goes into the water with Normani instead, and Dinah says she’s going to grab some popsicles **,** while Lauren lags behind hoping for a moment with Camila. Camila declares she’s going to go read under the sun, grabbing her phone and sunglasses from the bag next to Lauren’s chair and stepping away from their spot.

Lauren wants to follow her to explain why all of the sudden her issues with Dinah have come up again, even to defend herself if it has to come to that, but she can’t work up the courage to actually talk to Camila right now. It’s pretty clear Camila doesn’t want to talk to her right now, and Lauren isn’t about to push her luck.

She’s on her own when Dinah comes back with popsicles, handing one to Camila, and offering one to Lauren, too. Lauren tries to ignore her, because somehow Dinah managed to cause yet another misunderstanding between her and Camila. But Dinah sighs and sits down, quickly finishing her own popsicle and moving on to Lauren’s.

They sit in silence for a while, and Lauren can’t will herself to make the first move. She toes at the sand instead, watching as some drips of Dinah’s melting popsicles drip down by Dinah’s feet, and knowing she can’t just get up and leave no matter how much she would like to.

“I was a pretty dumb kid,” Dinah says eventually as they sit under the shade. “Hell, I don’t know how many times I had to be dragged to the emergency room because of some dumb ass idea I had, you know?”

Dinah chuckles, and Lauren stares down at her own fidgeting fingers and tries not to smile thinking back on how Dinah used to try to convince them to join her in her shenanigans when they were younger.

“I didn’t know, Lauren.” A sigh. “Can you look at me?”

It takes her a moment and a deep breath, but Lauren does, lifting her eyes to meet Dinah’s soft ones. Dinah has a resolute expression, like she’s decided that she’s going to get the both of them through this conversation whether Lauren wants her to or not.

“I love you, you dumbass. I love you, and I missed you all that time that, you know. I didn’t… I don’t remember saying that. I hope you don’t think that’s who I am—that I don’t love you or that I don’t love Walz, or that I,” her nose scrunches up as she seems to think over her words, “like, don’t accept you.”

“Yeah, well,” Lauren says weakly, finally averting her eyes down to her feet again. “Just because you don’t remember it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. That it didn’t hurt.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I apologized to Walz, too. But I mean, shit, Lauren. I was like, what, ten? I was being a dumb kid. I didn’t know what I saying. Heck, half the time I still don’t even know what I’m saying,” she laughs. “I know that I was wrong, though.” Her voice is serious, now, and it has Lauren lifting her head to look at her, because she needs to see for herself if she means it. “I mean shit, Lauren, you’re not _supposed_ to do anything you don’t want to, or, like. You can do whatever you want, and I’ll be happy for you if you’re happy, okay? I’ll kick some butts if I have to, too.”

It’s weird, hearing those words. Lauren’s spent ages, years of her life resenting Dinah and resenting the words she’d said, and hearing the complete opposite of them now is like emotional whiplash.

She doesn’t realize it until then, with Dinah looking at her so earnestly and clutching to her hand, that she didn’t really _want_ to forgive her until now. She didn’t want to let go of her resentment—she wanted someone to blame, something to hold on to as the reason everything went wrong and turned to shit.

But **s** he doesn’t need that anymore. It’s a startling realization, one that has her eyes brimming with tears—she’s so far beyond the place she used to be, and somehow it takes Dinah to bring her fully into that realization.

Dinah tightens the grip on her hand, and Lauren swallows thickly, trying to breathe through the overwhelming feeling of letting go of something she didn’t realize she needed to put behind her until now.

“Thank you,” Lauren says. “And I’m sorry, too.”

Dinah makes a dismissive noise, not unkindly, and lets go of Lauren’s hand to hook an arm around her neck instead, pulling her in for a hug.

“I’ve got your back. Whatever it is you wanna do,” Dinah says against her, hugging her tightly. “And I mean, you obviously want to do Walz, so hey, go for it.”

 

Senior year is a different ride altogether. Keana tells Lauren once that she feels like she has one foot down in the current year and one already in the next—like she’s here, but already half away in college, and Lauren is forced to admit she agrees, sometimes.

When she gets her first college acceptance letter, it has her screaming and jumping to hug her mom, but it’s soon followed by a bitter sense of dread.

Every new letter, even the ones telling her she’s waitlisted, is like a tick on the clock of the time she has left here, with her friends, with her family, with Camila. Sometimes she feels so far away from where she’s stood that it’s distressing.

Ally tells her it’s normal but also to try not to think about it so much. Normani tells her to shut up and not get her nervous. Her dad tell her he’s proud of her.

It’s Camila who pulls her back to the present, invariably, every time.

They don’t dwell on it. They’ve had their serious talks, they’ve had their tearful moments, and there’s nothing left for them to do than enjoy their time together and wait to see how the cards will fall.

Camila’s stubborn, anyway. She’s long since convinced Lauren to stop looking at the two of them in comparison to Keana and Ashley. When Lauren gets the acceptance letter to one of her top choices in colleges, Camila has nothing but pride to show for it—she hugs Lauren tight and tells her nothing about this is cause for sadness, and Lauren believes her.

It’s an active choice to believe in Camila—rather, it used to be. Now it comes as second nature. Looking into Camila’s eyes and trusting her is as easy as breathing now.

Seeing that trust reflected right back at her, then, is as exhilarating as their first kiss—like when she pulls Camila closer to herself when they’re with their friends, and gets a soft look and a smile from her as she presses in closer, when Camila’s body language screams how much she wants Lauren.

And Lauren trusts Camila, loves her, and wants her right back.

 

After college acceptance letters, everything starts happening really quickly. Finals come and go, and Lauren spends more time studying than sleeping, but she passes all of her tests with flying colors. It’s easier now that she knows her options—turns out the possibility of going to college with Ally is no longer a joke but something she’s actually considering—and somehow that also makes it easier to believe that she and Camila will be okay.

 She tries not to think too much about how convinced Keana and Ashley had been back when Ashley graduated high school, nearly two years ago now. It’s been a long time since the two of them broke up, and while Lauren thinks they’re still sad about it sometimes, they say it’s okay. In fact, both of them have told Lauren, repeatedly, that it’s okay, and Keana even threw in a vague hint that Lauren and Camila were going to be okay, too.

Vague, because even though Lauren is pretty sure everyone knows about them, she hasn’t explicitly told all of her friends that she’s dating Camila now. Normani is really the only one, because she’s Normani’, and it’s not like Lauren and Camila are trying to keep it a secret anymore.

That’s why the decision to tell Keana comes easy to her. She feels like Keana should know, too—for real. With Lauren coming out and telling her straight out.

Lauren really wants to do it between the two of them, so she waits until they’re hanging out on the softball field by themselves after school one day. She waits until they’re on a break from throwing balls back and forth, flopping themselves down on the field with bottles of water and hair sticking to their faces.

“I want to tell you something,” Lauren says, slowly, and waiting for a sense of anxiety that never comes. When she turns her head, Keana is looking back at her with an expectant twinkle in her eyes and a knowing grin on her lips, and Lauren playfully shoves her shoulder. “I’m dating Camila.”

Keana’s grin turns into a smirk. “ _Finally_.”

“We’ve been dating for a while actually,” Lauren admits, somewhat sheepish. “I don’t know why I didn’t tell you sooner to be honest.”

“It’s okay,” Keana shrugs. “You two have been through a lot. I get it if you want some time with just the two of you without everyone butting in to give shitty advice all the time.”

“I guess.” Lauren cracks a smile, a mixture of the one she gets whenever she thinks about Camila lately, and the one she gets every time Keana proves just how significant she is in Lauren’s life. “Thank you,” she says with a content sigh.

Keana doesn’t say anything for a moment or two. Then, “For what?”

“Making it easier for me to like girls,” Lauren says, softly. She frowns, trying to find the right words to say. “Does that sound weird?”

“No, not at all,” Keana says, almost immediately. “But you weren’t exactly subtle. You know that, right?”

Lauren laughs, covering her face with both her hands. “Oh my god. And here I was thinking I was the most subtle gay person on the surface of the earth.”

“I remember you almost had a heart attack when I said I liked Ash. Nothing subtle about how red your face got when you realized that I’m gay,” Keana says with a chuckle. “And when you were dating Brad—I mean, that wasn’t very convincing, either.”

“I thought I could like him,” Lauren sighs. She remembers Brad’s easy grin, how fondly he looked at her, how much she wanted to fall for him. “He was really nice and pretty handsome, but—”

“He’s a guy,” Keana deadpans. “And you’re gay.”

Lauren looks at Keana then, considering her words and taking a moment to process how she herself feels now, hearing them like that. Lauren’s not used to feeling this at ease whenever someone uses that word, especially when it’s in regards to herself, but the anxious feeling in her stomach doesn’t come, and the only jump of her heart is one of excitement. She nods. “Yeah, I’m gay.”

Keana reaches over and her fingertips brush Lauren’s wrist, and when Lauren meets her eyes, Keana is looking at her with what looks like a pride in her eyes. “And what about Camila?”

“Camila’s…” Lauren pauses, considering her words. “Not gay. I think.” She shrugs. “She said she likes boys and girls, but she likes me most. I didn’t want to like, push her into anything and make her label herself it if she doesn’t want to.”

“That’s good,” Keana nods. “As long as she’s into you I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Best advice ever,” Lauren grins. Keana grins back, and the moment settles, so Lauren sits up and picks up the ball from between them. “Camila’s almost done with band practice, but I still have some time to kick your ass if you’re up for it?”

Keana scrambles to her feet immediately. “Oh fuck you, Jauregui. I’m way better than you.”

“No fucking, thanks. I have a girlfriend,” Lauren shoots back, and she’s not even surprised by the flood of warmth that washes over her, because _Camila_ is her _girlfriend_ , and everyone can know.

Finally.

 

“Are you nervous?” Camila asks, lacing her fingers with Lauren’s. They’re in the backseat of Lauren’s parents’ car on the way to their high school, and Lauren hasn’t really said anything in the past hour or so.

She looks up at Camila. “A little. Is that weird? All I have to do is walk across a stage to pick up a piece of paper.”

“It’s not weird. You’re closing a chapter of your life today. That’s a big thing.” Camila’s eyes flicker towards where Lauren’s parents are sitting in the front of the car, and then she leans closer to brush a hair out of Lauren’s face. “You’re allowed to be nervous about change.”

Lauren subconsciously leans into Camila a little for comfort. She’s not sure whether she’s nervous because things are going to change after this or if she’s more excited about leaving high school and finally doing things she’s genuinely really interested in, but there’s a flutter in her stomach and she can’t stop tapping her foot nervously.

Her phone buzzes where it’s tucked under her thigh, and she unlocks it to see a bunch of messages from her friends confirming they’re already there.

It’s almost time. She wipes her clammy hands on the seat of the car before taking Camila’s hand back in hers and squeezing it tightly, thankful when all Camila does is squeeze back.

 

Her mind is a complete haze as she sits between her classmates and waits to be called. She has a brief thankful moment that she didn’t end up getting valedictorian, because she’s already nervous enough just sitting there listening intently for her name to be called.

It finally is—pronounced correctly, even, which has her shooting a pleased grin the announcer’s way, and the nudge she gets from the girl beside her is unnecessary as she jumps up to her feet. She glances down briefly to make sure she doesn’t trip on her gown and then takes measured steps towards where the principal is holding out her diploma.

The polite applause every student gets is overshadowed in her ears by loud whistles and calls for her name, and she flushes and can’t stop grinning as she looks over to see her family cheering for her in the audience.

Her dad is standing up, his fingers in his mouth as he whistles as loud as he can, her mother beside him clapping with a proud look on her face, and her brother and sister are right there too, hands around their mouths as they whoop her way.

And then there’s her friends—her extended family, really. Ally and Ashley are right near Lauren’s family in the seats, and though Ally’s jumping doesn’t make her that noticeable among the crowd, her voice calling Lauren’s name is impossible to miss. Ashley’s bright new hair color is hard to miss beside her, and her grin is obvious from afar. Dinah’s face is half-hidden behind her phone, and she’s undoubtedly snapchatting the entire thing, which, now that Lauren doesn’t hate her anymore is something she realized Dinah does a lot. Like, _a lot_.

Lauren trails her eyes over them—acknowledges Normani, who _doesn’t_ try to trip her the way she’d threatened to when Lauren had flicked her cap crooked, and Keana, who whoops for Lauren despite them all having been explicitly told not to do that for their colleagues while waiting for their diplomas—but her gaze invariably comes back to Camila.

She’s standing next to Lauren’s sister, and though Lauren had heard Camila screaming right along with her family, she’s now clutching her hands under her chin and looking right back at Lauren.

The pride that comes to her as she grabs the diploma from the principal’s hand doesn’t compare to the pride nearly bursting out of her chest at the thought that these are her people. All of them, screaming for her again as she flicks the tassel on her cap to the opposite side before walking down the steps on the stage, all of them are there for her.

 

When the official ceremony is over, Lauren rushes over to where her family and friends are waiting for her. Her parents are standing next to each other with one arm around each other’s waists and the other spread wide open for Lauren to fly into. She buries her face into her father’s shoulder and her mom shuffles closer to wrap them both into a group hug.

Lauren holds on to both her parents like a lifeline, and even though she promised herself not to cry in front of everyone, she feels tears dripping into her father’s jacket. Out of everyone in her life, her parents have always been a constant support system and there has never really been a moment where she doubted they loved her no matter what, but graduating high school means the start of having to separate from them. She wants to go to college a few hours away from Miami, and while she’ll still be able to visit them often, it’s not the same as seeing them every day.

Her parents seem to feel the same way, because they hold her just as tightly, only momentarily loosening their grip when Chris and Taylor shuffle closer to join the family group hug. Lauren laughs through her tears, trying to keep her mind off of how much she’s going to miss them.

At some point they start letting go of each other and when Lauren steps back she notices tear stains on her mom’s face, too. With a soft smile, her mom kisses the top of her head. “Your friends are waiting. We’ll see you at home, okay?”

Lauren nods and follows her mom’s gaze to where Ally is practically jumping up and down to hug her, and she smiles. “Yeah, sure. See you there.”

Her parents, Chris, and Taylor all wave a quick goodbye to Lauren’s friends before disappearing in the crowd, and Lauren spins around on her heels to focus her attention on her friends. Even before she’s fully turned around Ally’s arms are around her waist and she’s forced a step backwards from the way Ally quite literally threw herself at Lauren.

“I’m so proud of you,” Ally says, her voice a few tones higher than normal. “You did it! You graduated at the top of your class and you got accepted into your top colleges—” She takes a deep breath, gesturing at herself to calm down. “I’m just really proud of you.”

Lauren laughs, and she ruffles Ally’s hair. “Thanks, babe. I’m so glad you could make it.”

Ally’s face flushes bright red as she bites her lip and shrugs. “I mean, uh, half our group of friends is graduating today. I didn’t really have a choice.”

“Yeah, but still. Thank you.” Lauren wraps one arm around Ally’s shoulders to half hug her again, and she presses a sloppy kiss against her hair. Over the years, Ally has always been some sort of constant, too, even if they didn’t see each other as often as they wanted. Ally was in college a few hours away from Miami, and they each had their own lives, but they spoke nearly every day through texts and sometimes Skype calls, and it didn’t really feel like Ally was _away_.

Ally sort of pulls out of the hug then, and Ashley takes that opportunity to sweep in and tap Lauren’s cap so that it almost falls off her head. “Great job at being a nerd, Jauregui.”

Lauren feigns offense and rolls her eyes, putting the cap back the way it was. “Thanks, Frappuchino.”

“I hate that joke,” Ashley says, but she’s smiling and there’s zero offense in her voice. “Have you seen Keana?”

“She’s back there with Normani and Dinah,” Ally says, pointing at somewhere behind Lauren. “Did you talk to her yet?”

“What do you want to talk about?” Lauren asks, frowning.

Ashley shrugs. “We’ve been texting a bit, but we haven’t seen each other since we broke up. I wanted to give her space, you know?”

“Oh. Do you want to get back together?”

“I don’t know, I don’t want to rush into anything. It’s been a while, and she’s out of high school now. Maybe things have changed.” Ashley lets out a sigh and pushes her hair out of her face. “Are we still hanging out at your place after this formal bullshit is over with?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan.” Lauren gives Ashley a thumbs up, after which Ally and Ashley set off to find Keana and Normani in the crowd.

Lauren sinks down on the first chair to her right to take a breath from all the excitement, but before she can really relax, Camila appears in front of her. Her eyes are wide with exhilaration and pride, and Lauren jumps up to hug her.

There’s a bright smile on Camila’s face as she takes a step closer to wrap her arms around Lauren, and Lauren can’t fight the happiness bubbling up inside her chest. All the heaviness of the day seems to fall off her shoulders the moment Camila reaches out to give her a hug, and there’s a moment where everything feels exactly right. Lauren buries her face in Camila’s neck with a content sigh, breathing in Camila’s scent and feeling like right now this is the only thing that counts.

She graduated high school, and she somehow managed to get the only person who can make her heart race and calm her down at the same time back into her life. Lauren can’t remember a time she was happier than this—this is just _it_. Nothing else matters.

“I’m so proud of you,” Camila whispers in her ear, her lips grazing her skin, sending endless shivers down her spine. “You looked so happy walking down that stage to pick up your diploma. Just seeing you smile makes me smile, too.”

“Hmm,” Lauren hums, lips curling up into a smile. “You make me happy.”

Camila pulls back slightly, and her eyes briefly flicker down to Lauren’s lips. She blinks, and Lauren waits, knowing what’s going to happen. But when Camila leans in to kiss her mouth, it still takes her breath away. She freezes for a moment, highly aware of how there are at least a hundred people around them, but Camila doesn’t pull back and Lauren can’t help but melt into her touch.

Camila smiles into her mouth and when she pulls back, Lauren sees her own happiness reflected in Camila’s eyes.

“I’m so proud of you,” Camila repeats, still close enough for their foreheads to touch. “And I’m so in love with you.”

Lauren’s chest actually feels like it’s going to burst from the way her heart is hammering against her ribs, but it’s a good feeling. It’s joy and relief and falling in love. She tightens her grip on Camila’s waist, and she buries her face in Camila’s neck, and she’s happier than she’s ever been.

 

They’re on the trampoline later that day, when there’s darkness surrounding them and the stars seem exceptionally bright in the night sky. Their friends are scattered across Lauren’s backyard; Ally, Dinah, and Normani are lying on the grass a few feet away from the trampoline, and Keana and Ashley are sitting closely on a wooden bench, talking in hushed voices.

Lauren knows their friends are right there—she can even make out their conversations in the silence of the night—but it somehow feels like Camila is the only other person in the world. Their hands are intertwined, and there’s a certain calmness that’s spread over them, like a blanket to keep them safe from harm.

When Lauren turns her head to look at Camila, Camila is already looking at her with an easy smile, and Lauren realizes with a start that this is the way she’s been looking at Camila for most of her life. She can’t remember not being in love with Camila, and the past year was enough to heal the wounds that had been carved into her heart long before she even knew why.

Camila’s lips curl up into a brighter smile, and Lauren doesn’t hesitate before rolling over to kiss her. Camila’s hands hook into the loops of Lauren’s jeans to pull her closer, but there’s nothing sexual about it. It’s just Lauren kissing Camila and Camila kissing Lauren because words are not enough to express their feelings anymore—it’s fulfilling the need to be as close to each other as possible.

And when they pull back with tingling lips and fire inside their chests, Camila whispers, “I love you,” and Lauren says, “I love you, too.”

And just like when they were six years old, Camila’s smiles shyly and asks, “Forever?” And Lauren smiles and touches Camila’s cheek and nods. “Forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N #1:** wow. when i first started writing this story, i had no idea that by the end of it i'd have 50K words and a really good friend as a result. this started out as a oneshot for a friend's birthday (which was in december, by the way, oops) and turned into something i'm really proud of.
> 
> first of all i want to thank generalfrings for writing this story with me, for being a great friend, for the random late nights where we were both half asleep but still continued to write, for everything. this is as much your baby as it is mine, and we're a pretty fucking good team. i'm proud of us.
> 
> this story means so much to me, and i've had people tell me it means a lot to them, too, and i think that's one of the best compliments you can get. being able to make people feel some type of way, whether it's happiness or sadness or feeling accepted, normal, or less lonely is the best feeling in the world, and i have all of you to thank for that.
> 
> thank you for going on this journey with me, for leaving kudos and comments, for reading the words i wrote. don't forget to smile today :)
> 
>  **A/N #2:** Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!
> 
> If I was going to write the shortest A/N ever, that would be it. But given this is the last chapter, I think I should say some more. :P
> 
> First of all, thanks to Emilia, bc duh. I remember when we were first getting to talk, and I mentioned missing writing as a collaborative thing. You said you'd never in a million years describe writing as a collaborative thing (my words, your feelings), and you could not imagine doing it yourself at all, nor imagine it working for you. Well, look at us now.  
> And thanks to you guys for coming along with us on this journey - I hope you've enjoyed it. Your messages and comments have meant more than you could imagine to the both of us, and you bet your asses you've made us cry a couple of times. 
> 
> So at the end of all of this - I've found a new friend slash writing buddy, a whole lot of words I'm proud of out here, and so many freaking feelings (more than 50K of them, probs). I hope you all have also gotten something good out of this. Thanks again, and keep on keeping on!


End file.
